Fraternizing
by Whozawhatcha
Summary: A Decepticon torturer isn't the kind of femme the Autobots are willing to take into their ranks but Optimus makes an exception for their eager prisoner. However, no one expected the slightly bipolar femme to carry a dangerous grudge with her ambiguous past. Stakes run high and secrets run deep, and despite her conversion to Autobot, this femme cant shake her ties with Decepticons
1. Autobot Prisoner

**Author's Note:**

**Okay. Fraternizing has been reported for sexual content by an irascible spitfire. In order to keep it posted, I have edited out all of the smut scenes, but I do not think you can enjoy the full impact of Fraternizing WITHOUT those scenes because a heavy line of the plot is based off Nightstalker's sexual abuse (spoiler alert, btw).**

**So, if you are going to read this and there is a scene I say has been cut, feel free to PM me for another site to read it at. :)**

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><p>Nightstalker glanced over at Starscream's back when the entire energon reserve exploded, diminishing to mere ruins by Vehicon folly. His wings perked, tensing.<p>

"The energon," he seethed to himself. "It's worthless to me now."

Nightstalker crossed her slim arms, her own wings twitching restlessly as she stood on the gangway to the mother computer. This would set Starscream into a surly mood. She muffled a sigh. She hated to be around him at this point. She could go sneak off somewhere else . . . She wasn't actually needed in the command center, after all. Still, Nightstalker held back just for the sake of seeing this Autobot. It had been many long years since she had had a chance to get her claws on one, and today could turn out to be an exception.

She was a low class seeker, not heavily armored with metal-piercing weapons or anything that caused major amounts of damage. Nightstalker was no one's brawler, and she was never put out on the front lines. She held a position of a more . . . _delicate_ matter, that being one of torture. She had briefly studied under Arachnid's lead for several millennia as an assistant . . . also, to replace said mentor if she was offlined or deserted, the latter of which happened.

Her name derived from her ebony armor, blackened like crusting lava. Her optics glowed stunning orange, a trade-off from the classic Decepticon red she despised. Nightstalker was of light build, classic clawed Decepticon hands, and kneecaps rounded smooth with sparse heels only about half the height of Starscream's. She held no missiles to her name, only a light machine gun in her alt mode that resided as a pop-out hand-held from her back, and a curved blade that came free of her left arm that initially looked much more menacing than she could possibly wield it.

Nightstalker was not voluptuously gifted with provocative curves, but had only sparkbearing hips and enough of an aft and rounded chest piece that designated her female. She was of sleek make, a sinister-looking tool with a wide assortment of torture tools ranging from welders, precision cutting knives, whips, barbed-wire chains, a gifted portion of some of Arachnid's unique venom, and her own personal favorite and what she specialized in, a toxic lava to melt through metal. They say that she chose her optics as blazing orange to reflect her favorite tool of her trade—and they would be correct in every way.

Still, weapons of torture weren't the only things she had installed to her. Her welder could alternately be used for healing as well. More than once she had stabilized a transformer for the Decepticons, diagnosed a bot with her scanners, or used an EMP burst to knock someone out. She knew the light extremities of keeping a bot alive, but it was for the purpose of keeping them alive longer to torture them more. She was no experienced femme in the art of medical skills, something that Knockout loved to tease her about.

She was used primarily for torture, rarely medical, but Nightstalker prided herself a little with her growing skills in hacking, infiltration, data theft, and all amounts of sabotage of vital systems. She would periodically try her hand against Soundwave because it was the quickest way to learn—could she possibly get past the _NEMISIS_'s security systems and him to place a harmless virus that would make things run slower? Then, how long could she keep it there until Soundwave removed it with the silent deeming of her to "try again." She was curious to know that he didn't particularly care of her futile hacking skills into the _NEMESIS_—particularly because she didn't do anything major—and Nightstalker found that it was a good way to get some practice in. After all, with a job like torture, Nightstalker had searched for a good hobby, and needling at Soundwave every now and then was her choice.

Nightstalker turned her face towards the two Vehicons that dragged in a vaguely red Autobot coated in the dust and burns of the explosion. Hm . . . Nightstalker assessed his damages to be quite extensive, though with a few stabilizing welds he'd be ready for the torture chamber. Nightstalker stood to the side as he looked up with the typical blue optics of Autobots.

"Scream," he managed to say. "It's been a while."

She started a little on the inside. She hadn't expected him to have such a nice voice. Nightstalker brushed it off quickly, just as she had done with any other time. Sure, there had been times a handsome Autobot had been brought in chains to her dark chambers, but each had screamed their vocal processors thin and died by her hand. A nice voice was nothing new, and all Nightstalker had to do was to keep herself distant and as sinister as possible. Besides, none of them ever had anything nice to say to a Decepticon in the least.

He coughed several times, little spits of energon flying from his lips. Nightstalker frowned, silently adding to her list of wounds his internal bleeding. That would have to stop before any torture. "So," he asked Starscream. "Where's your master?"

Starscream's eyes flared in anger. "Never mind him!" he snarled. Nightstalker's gaze jumped to Starscream's frenzied optics. He was furious—he was bound to do something rash, and it was proved true when he lifted his hand. "I am my _own_ master!"

"Starscream, wait!" Nightstalker found herself reaching out to grab his wrist, surprised she had managed to stop him as he turned a hissing sneer at her. He snarled in fury, slapping Nightstalker across the face. She felt her metal hinge up in defense.

"Do not _ever_ dare question my authority again you worthless glitch!" he shouted down at her. Teardown wiped her face of emotion and zeroed in on his warped face.

"Just one moment for a suggestion, my Lord," Nightstalker said, pointedly ignoring the curious eyes of the Autobot looking up at her. She kept herself carefully professional as she said, "Why kill him? He may have given some lip, but we have an Autobot captive, and we know of Optimus Prime's fatal soft streak towards his soldiers. He is nearly willing to do anything to protect his fellow followers, correct?" Starscream was still livid, but his quaking was ceasing as he peered at her. "Yes," he grumbled darkly, eyes narrowing. "Do go on."

Nightstalker shifted, not knowing exactly what she was doing or why she was doing it. "Well, we've got ourselves the perfect hostage." The red Autobot narrowed his eyes at her too, unsure what to make of her. "He's a great bargaining chip. My functions are very limited to the torture chamber, and I'm sure I can coax useful information from him, maybe such thing as the Autobot base. There's a lot to be done with a captive, so there's no need to waste it by killing him . . . yet."

Starscream made a thoughtful sound in his vocal processor, turning his red optics from Nightstalker to the red Autobot. Nightstalker kept her gaze away from that of the captive and instead fixated it on the wall.

After a long moment, Starscream barked, "Very well! Nightstalker, you're in charge of his torture until I find the most profitable way to use him." He waved a hand, turning from them. "Now get out of my sight."

Nightstalker just nodded and sent a Vehicon to fetch the closest stasis cuffs. She waved off the other Vehicon, taking the captive herself. She hauled him to his feet and forced his arms behind him, making him twitch slightly in pain before he managed to walk himself.

It was a good long walk to the designated torture chambers that had long been empty, and it was going to be much longer since the Autobot could barely keep his feet after such a beating. He shivered beneath Nightstalker's touch. The Vehicon eventually came back with the stasis cuffs, so Nightstalker fitted them to the Autobot and sent the Vehicon away. They proceeded their long walk.

After going through many twisting hallways, he finally spoke again, gracing Nightstalker with his curiously nice voice. "I don't see how you Decepticons keep all these hallways straight . . ."

Nightstalker hesitated. It would be so easy to respond. But, would they consider it fraternizing with the enemy if she made light small talk with him?

Before she could properly think it through, he gave another weak laugh. They were leaving a small trail of energon down the hall. "Nothing to say? Or afraid to fraternize with the enemy?"

Slag he was good at that. "I'm not afraid," Nightstalker said immediately to him, giving his arms a warning twist.

His shoulders tensed up at the strain she put on him, but he remained just as cocky as usual. "Well, nice to hear my captor saying something." He momentarily coughed up more energon. "I was beginning to think you'd lost the functioning in your vocal processor."

Nightstalker twisted his arms harder, managing to make him audibly grit his teeth. "You ought to be grateful I saved your life," she snarled quietly at him.

He gave the bark of a sarcastic laugh. "Grateful? I've went from a painless death to the torture chamber. Why should I, of all bots, be beholden to you?"

Nightstalker chose not to answer, wondering why she had even brought it up. Why she had even considered the option in the first place, and why she had even decided to actually follow through with it.

They were quiet for some time, the Autobot momentarily wrapped up in anger at his situation and Nightstalker for reasons she couldn't place. What HAD possessed her to save his aft? She knew it wasn't really for information, or even as a bargaining chip, but it wasn't anything deep either. It was just . . . nothing. Perhaps the voice. Was that it? She scowled in frustration to herself. It wasn't even that. She blamed it on herself. That had been the most small talk she had made with any Autobot prisoner.

Finally, after some time of silence, he said a bit wryly, "Then I supposed it'd be too much to hope that you're an Autobot agent undercover as a Decepticon?"

Nightstalker bit back a tired sigh and instead forced a cold scoff. "Now you're just desperate." He didn't respond. "And anyone in their right mind on this ship, Autobot agent or not, knows that Soundwave sees and hears everything on this ship. If you think you've got a secret, he knows it."

"I'd say that's an invasion of privacy," he muttered back.

Nightstalker shrugged as she pushed him into an elevator. She hit the button for the bottom. "Easy to say," she said without a problem. "Most consider him as dead as a computer, so they don't really care that much except for the fact that he passes on anything essential to Megatron."

Nightstalker found herself irrevocably tongue-tied again. Why was she wasting her breath? Besides that, she wasn't being as . . . cruel, as she normally was. Why force a scoff when it should be something easy and relished? Nightstalker forced away her troubled thoughts, accounting it for the many centuries without having a prisoner to torture. She must have grown soft. This will be a good way to toughen back up.

The elevator door whizzed open to the rank and dark hallways of the torture chambers. Lighting was always dim on the Decepticon mother ship, but minimal lights were spared for deep in these parts. It was utterly silent in these parts save for the Autobots staggering steps and Nightstalker's steady steps. These parts weren't cleaned either. Faint traces of spilled energon could still rot in their nasal sensors and the all around ominous feeling was enough to make a bot's plating crawl.

It didn't really matter what room she brought him into. She stopped at the fourth on the right and entered the standard code for the door before shoving the Autobot through.

She attached him to the electrical chains that would hold him steady. They magnetized to the stasis cuffs, lifting his arms automatically and bringing his body to hover above the ground, feet just dragging if he every truly gained enough strength to stand on his own. Then, Nightstalker attached the same stasis cuffs to his feet to hold him still—she had had one too many smart-aft prisoners who liked to use their legs to attack her.

"So," she was surprised to hear him ask, "why Decepticons?"

Nightstalker turned her orange eyes up to him. She arched an eyebrow. "Why Autobots?"

The red bot seemed taken aback that she had even asked. Without waiting for his reply, Nightstalker prepped her EMP burst and held it up to the Autobot's helm. She briefly knocked him out. Working quickly, she dismantled his chest plates and quickly inspected his insides, finding the trauma centered in his wiring and carefully mending his internal bleeding. With several welds to keep his energon from dripping, Nightstalker had finished her few repairs to him. Sending her own personal set of nanites through him, Nightstalker offlined his weapons, turned off his homing signals, and all other necessities. She scrambled his frequencies to keep him from onlining everything when he woke back up.

Leaving the room, Nightstalker closed the door behind her and changed the code from the standard to one of the ones she had retained for millennia. According to her scans, he would wake sometime this evening. His torture would begin then.


	2. Torture

**Author's Note:**

**This story starts a bit slow cause it's nothing but Cliffjumper's torture. But it's very necessary.**

**Nightstalker is roughly half a head shorter than Arcee. As Cliffjumper's torture proceeds, you will get to see many more references to Arcee.**

**And . . . hm. Forgot what I was going to say. _Dante's Inferno_ was a great book. In all actuality, my OTP is Cliff and Arcee. I love them. They're cute. Arcee is one hell of a feminine character in Transformers Prime. So freaking strong and not just in the physical sense.**

**Nightstalker's song is "Howl" by Florence + The Machine**

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><p>"Back so soon?"<p>

His cocky attitude was getting on her nerves. Nightstalker ignored his comment, wondering when he had regained functions in his body to respond so cheekily to her again. Then again, the bot had given Starscream smack talk while he was on his knees.

The Autobot gave a harsh laugh, and Nightstalker duly noted that he wasn't coughing up excess energon anymore. "The silent treatment again?"

Nightstalker crossed her arms behind her back, circling the mech slowly. His blue optics watched her as she assessed his body make. He was a short mech, only a full head and a half taller than Nightstalker's height, but he had the thicker build of a brawler. He was clearly automobile, most likely a muscle car, had horns on his head most likely more for decoration than anything though he was minus one now. The Autobot emblem resided on both his outer forearms.

"Like what you see?" he teased again without much lightheartedness in his voice. Nightstalker passed around his back, inspecting his body. Beneath those bulky shoulders would be especially sensitive to pain, why his shoulders were so bulky in the first place. The headlights at his waist would serve well, as would his hands. There was always the cruel way to fall back on a mech's codpiece, but Nightstalker always found ways to keep from having to exploit that certain extremity. The neck was always a sensitive area, but the neck area was very unstable, and very easy to accidentally kill your captive prematurely. Vocal processors were better, and optics.

Nightstalker passed around the front of the Autobot who steadily kept his eyes on her. "So," he said again as Nightstalker studied him, "what made a gal like you decide to go into the torture business?"

Every Cybertronian's armor was suspect to her lava, and it was an easy place to start. But, the whips may be more fun . . . "Too small for anything else," Nightstalker told him, passing her eyes down his body for where she wanted her point of entry to be. "Besides, I would have a mentor to teach me better."

He frowned then. "A mentor?"

Nightstalker shrugged. "Arachnid is very successful in this area."

Nightstalker watched curiously as his eyes widened in horror, looking at her with newfound disgust. "Arachnid?" he echoed. "Out of all the slagging Decepticons . . ."

"I take it you've had a run-in with Arachnid," Nightstalker said idly, letting her whips coil out from her arms. "Either that, or you know someone who has."

He narrowed his eyes, suddenly fearing his captor a bit more. "You could say that."

Nightstalker wasted no more time for idle chatter and slung out her right whip, letting it snap and curl around one of his spread arms. He flinched at their decidedly serrated edges that left thin lines of energon leaking from his arms.

"Now," Nightstalker said to him, "we begin."

He didn't respond then, gaze flattening to the same Autobot determination she had seen over the years. It would take some time to coax the answers out of him, but he would be just like every Autobot that had spent enough time screaming and enduring the rank solitude of her cells; he would either slowly break, or slowly die.

"You know many more things than I actually could think of information-wise," Nightstalker crooned easily to him, letting her fingers trace next to the whip around his arm. "Therefore, feel free to surprise me with any amount of information you would like to give. I promise, it will make things easier on yourself." She gave a light shrug and a coy smile at his glare. "Besides, if Starscream likes you enough, he won't just kill you to spite the Autobots; he may let you go back for a ransom."

He scoffed at her. "Like you could possibly get me to betray the Autobots. Fair warning: you've got pit's job before you."

Nightstalker jerked the whip down and let it tear through his paint, causing him to tense up and clamp his mouth down to stop a yell. She then snapped the whip again, letting it wrap around his neck. She pulled, letting the whip tighten and lean him down close to her face.

"Good," she murmured to him, making his eyes narrow. "I like a challenge." She jerked the whip back again and backed up a good way, twirling them restlessly like lassos at her feet. "Now while I have my fun, I want you to think about what you can tell me, and you can think about the answer to this question: where is the Autobot base?" Nightstalker felt herself falling into her usual pattern of torture as she let a mocking smile curl her lips up. "Debate the answer and how much it truly means to you. Then, I will ask again and expect an answer."

Nightstalker took the first strike at him, letting her whips crack against his metal. The sound banged out like a gunshot, echoing sharply in the enclosed room. This would be the only sound since the red Autobot stubbornly kept his mouth shut and refused to cry out. Playing around with her whips, Nightstalker laughed out loud but to herself as she struck the mech over and over, seeing the thin lines of energon lacing across multiple wounds that quickly accumulated.

"It's been some time since I've had a chance to enjoy some old fashioned torture," Nightstalker said conversationally, unsurprised when the mech kept his tight jaw shut. She hit him once across the face just to see him seethe. She chuckled at him. "Your indignation is cute."

Nightstalker took leisure time to inflict the numerous wounds that were nothing serious. These wounds were to cause him to feel pain all over his body as a reminder that no part of himself was safe. These were meant to make his strength slowly sap and the scars to infect and wither him more. It was a simple tool, but one that Nightstalker found most promising when done correctly. This was where she differed from Arachnid—Arachnid immediately went for the cruel things while Nightstalker played with you and slowly drew out punishments.

After a lengthy time of attacking with her whips and seeing thin lines of energon coat his body at almost every turn now, Nightstalker let her whips rest. "Now. Where is the Autobot base?"

His head was down, and Nightstalker was unsurprised to see him look up with hard eyes. "Sorry to say," he told her, "but if that's all you've got then I've got no problem."

Nightstalker gave a light laugh and a simple shrug. "Is this it? No, of course not. Please dear, this is just the preliminaries." Flicking a switch inside of her, Nightstalker let the electrical currents run through her whips. His blue eyes jumped to the sight of the tips of the whips cracking with electrical energy and the sound of electricity humming through her weapons. Nightstalker quirked a brow at him, saying easily, "Of course, since this is too mild for you, I can always speed things up."

She didn't let him think through the implications of her statement but instead lashed the whip out with more ferocity than before, letting it crack against the side of his helm. This time the Autobot couldn't resist a startled yell of pain, jerking against his bonds when the electrical current shocked like lightning through him. Nightstalker paused, watching with bland amusement as he struggled to lift his head to keep her in his sights, but his optics were frizzing from the amount of raw power that had surged through his system.

"Those warning signals flashing across your optics?" Nightstalker intoned carelessly. "Get used to those. They will be all you see for the next stretch of your life." She watched as his optics finally focused on her, and she finally saw the first flicker of doubt flash through him before he hardened again. She gave him a sickeningly sweet look of misunderstanding.

"What?" she asked, as if he had asked a question. Nightstalker lifted both whips and slapped down both on his left shoulder, making his jaw clamp the tightest she had seen it yet and arch sharply in pain. "Did you forget? With your signals disabled, the Autobots have no idea how to find you, much less can they track the _NEMESIS._ I have you all to myself for megacycles, solarcycles, stellarcycles . . . and exactly how much pain I wish to inflict depends on your answers." She smiled at his look of indignation. "So speak up," she cajoled to him, letting another sadistic smile curl her lips. "You might save yourself if you do."

His eyes widened a little, from what Nightstalker couldn't tell in time because she had already let her whips fly. This time the reoccurring process was different as she indulged in electrocuting him. He tried to keep his silence, but after a bit, even that changed.

The first scream was less than imagined, just a muffled cry from between his lips when Nightstalker lashed her whips against his headlights. The next, notwithstanding, was more pronounced, cutting off shortly with another harsh grit of his teeth. After that, Nightstalker was pleased to hear constant screams echoing in her chambers of agonizing death.

It wasn't until several screams became punctuated with frizzing of his voice did Nightstalker relent. Twirling the whips casually about her feet, Nightstalker reminded him, "I'm in charge here. You are at my complete mercy, whatever mercy that I may possess." She cracked the whip again near his helm, letting him watch it come. He jerked back wildly from the tip, but it just snapped in front of his face in a serious threat. She didn't want to short him out, after all. "Now," Nightstalker asked again, "do you have the _faintest_ idea where the Autobot base could be?"

There was a moment of silence where nothing could be heard but the sadistic hum and crackle of electricity in her whips. Finally, the red Autobot managed to bring his head up to eyelevel. His trembling lips managed his next words.

"Even if I did, I would never tell you."

He cringed again when she faked attacking him with her whip. Nightstalker let out a laugh, indeed, very amused. "Please, of _course_ you know where your base is, so don't even try that method," she laughed, finding him funnier the more she had him here in the shadowy dungeon. "Just man up and tell me that you're not telling me."

"Find then," he said thinly, blue optics narrowing. "I'll never rat on my friends, and there isn't a fragging thing you can do to make it different."

She shrugged, saying, "Brave, but the days down here can get tedious . . . I wonder how long it will take to make you see different." Nightstalker gave a sigh, retracting her whips leisurely and letting her wings twitch. His optics jumped at every movement she made. "The whips bore me. Let's move on from this simple play, and we'll finally get serious. Let me ask you a question that you can answer: do you know why my eyes are orange instead of the typical Decepticon red?"

He hesitated, blue optics narrowing with distrust. "I don't know," he finally stated.

Nightstalker sighed, rolling her eyes. She grabbed his face with her hands, making his jaw tense when she leaned in close, invading his personal space as he twitched in pain from the whips. "Come on, you're a bright bot," she spat a little. "You don't have the faintest idea? Surely you can come up with something to amuse me with."

"I'm not here for your amusement!" he denied her, glaring as defiantly as he could into her eyes.

"On the contrary," Nightstalker drawled, stepping within a hairs breadth from him and pulling him down. He stiffened. "You are here for nothing _except_ my amusement," she hissed in his audio receptors, letting her claws dig into the back of his neck. She let her other servos claws dig into the plating above his interface panel. He couldn't quite stop a thin gasp of horror. "_Whatever_ my amusement may be."

When Nightstalker caught sight of the sheer horror that mounted in his optics, she laughed, shaking her head. "Now, now," she told him with mocking reassurance, "if you behave well we won't have to go to such extremes."

"We don't?" he replied thinly with heavy sarcasm. "That's a first."

Nightstalker let her lips curl into a smile. "Unlike most," she said, trailing the tip of her fingertips from his interface panel up to that one horn on his head. "Unlike most, I have a healthy respect for that area." She stroked that one horn on his head curiously, wondering why he had chosen them out of all things to decorate his head with. "After all, a torturer doesn't get an interface too often."

Something clashed in his eyes before he suddenly growled, "Don't touch me there."

Her hand jumped from him instantly for some reason, and then her lips curled again. "I see," she stated, crossing her arms. "A hot spot that's already touched by someone special. You don't want me making it feel different." His optics flickered, but he didn't argue, so Nightstalker knew she had hit a nerve. She waved a hand. "Now, you don't have the slightest idea of why my optics are orange?"

Something worked behind his gaze that was slowly filling with fear. "To designate you as the torturer," he finally squeezed out of his vocal processor. "Because you're female. Or maybe you just don't like red."

Her lips quirked up. So, he still had some spunk. "Wrong on all accounts," she told him, giving a little laugh. "Though, I am not too partial for the color red. It must be why I like to tear apart your paint." He refused to flinch, stolidly keeping his gaze on her. "As to why my optics are orange," Nightstalker said, approaching closer, "is because it signifies the lava boiling inside my blackened crust." She lifted a finger, transforming it in his sights. Nightstalker _very_ deliberately let one droplet of the glowing orange lava drop to the floor between them. It hissed at contact.

She didn't miss the way his optics flared in true alarm.

"Now before I start, I'll give you the chance to answer again," Nightstalker said, slowly pacing around him. "The Autobot base?" He didn't answer. Nightstalker transformed each finger open, chuckling behind him. "You ready, sweetheart?" She didn't touch him for some time, knowing that he was waiting for it and would not know when it came since she was behind him. She smiled to herself. To play with her captive's mind was always refreshing. His metal kept hinging up more and more as the time passed at which she didn't touch him, but Nightstalker kept letting drops fall, letting the sound of the sizzle fill the air and let his mind run haywire with thoughts of how his metal would react when _it_ sizzled.

At the first sign of relaxation, Nightstalker sliced her claws oozing lava across his back. He arched and screamed, jerking forward as the lava rolled down his body and slowly burned through the metal.

"What was that?" she shouted out above his screams. The red Autobot clamped his mouth shut again, struggling to keep anymore sounds inside. "Did you say something about the Autobot base? No? Okay, then we'll try this again!" Nightstalker let her claws puncture his right arm, letting the lava pour into the insides and melt away the wiring. His screams began fresh, agonizing howls of misery as he thrashed in his prison, unable to escape the molten grip on his upper arm.

"Tell me the location of the Autobot base and I'll stop," she promised him. When he still refused to give up the location, Nightstalker let more lava pour into his arm. He writhed in pain, screaming so forcefully that his vocals began to fritz in and out.

Nightstalker jerked her claws from the mech's arm and his voice box broke briefly in pain. Her orange eyes idly took in his shuddering form, his thin gasping, and his bowed head. She walked around him, eyeing the gaping wound she had left in his arm that still leaked lava through the holes. The steady drip sizzled against the flooring and ate through the mech's metal.

Nightstalker waved her hand to catch his attention. "So . . ." she drawled out, looking at him with exaggerated curiosity. "Do we have an idea yet where the Autobot base could be? Or do we need continue this?" She drew a thin line across his opposite arm, making his body strain as the lava smoldered and ate that thin line open like cheese.

His breathing was labored, his lips trembled, and his voice was filled with static. "Y-You'll never . . . get . . ."

Nightstalker waved him silent with her hand, rolling her eyes. "Yes. I get it. Was everything tonight not enough?" She gave a sigh, shaking her head. "A pity." She waltzed around him once, taking in every turn of his body when she decided, to pit with it. Transforming the tips of her fingers closed, Nightstalker let a small compartment in her right arm transform. Taking out one of the three vials filled with a sickly green fluid, she wagged it in front of the mech's curiously frightened eyes.

"You know what this is?" she asked him. When he didn't respond, she smashed her fist against his lava-ravaged arm. He screamed again, and Nightstalker patiently waited for him to gather his breath back.

"I don't know," he gasped immediately when he could, still struggling for his breath. Nightstalker patted his cheek.

"Would you like to know what this is?"

A shudder ran through his frame before he managed to respond. "Not . . . particularly . . ."

"My mentor gifted it to me," Nightstalker continued. His gaze snapped up then. She swirled the bright green liquid in its vial. "If you're thinking that this is her own unique poison, you'd be thinking correct."

Nightstalker watched in curiosity as unconcealed horror rose in his eyes. She widened her orange eyes to him. "Oh? It seems you're affiliated with the stories of her venom. Perhaps, you've had a taste?" His blue optics jumped to her before fixating on the vial, and it caused Nightstalker to laugh darkly. "No, you haven't, but you've clearly seen what it can do to a bot." She swirled it in his sights again, pulling out a precision cutting knife for the occasion, surprised she hadn't wielded these on him yet. "Would you like to have a taste?"

"I'd prefer not," he rasped immediately, eyes wide in untold terror of the venom. Nightstalker didn't care for his response and opened the vial, dipping the tip of her blade into the substance. It hissed on contact, and she held up the blade near him. He was audibly trying to control his gasps as he leaned away, and Nightstalker leisurely passed the venom-dipped edge across his cheek. The mech's eyes dilated and widened in agony, a quick gasp and a clenched jaw all that kept back his screams. He twitched, silently enduring his first taste of her venom.

Seeing his untold fear, this was where Arachnid would plunge forward with the punishments brutally until he broke. This was where Nightstalker retreated back with a secretive smirk as his metal hissed and sizzled, tiny wisps of smoke coiling up like snakes. His terrified blue optics slammed into her orange ones.

Nightstalker closed the vial and returned it to her arm with the other two. She smiled at him, and he looked on with growing apprehension. "I think that's enough for today," she told him, "but don't worry—we'll pick up with the venom tomorrow morning." His optics tightened with barely contained panic.

Nightstalker turned and gave him a slight wave. "Remember my question, darling," she cajoled to him. "You might not have to endure the venom." With that, Nightstalker exited and locked the door behind her, leaving him inside the cell. A second later, she cut off all the lights in his room so the darkness would plague him just as much.

She left the door, knowing he'd be hyperventilating with barely controlled hysteria of the dark and the dread of what would come tomorrow. Nightstalker thought it was probably the worst failing she could find in Arachnid. While she was deadly with her usage of torture, striking fear into the most brave, there were times she failed in extracting information. Namely, Arcee, but Nightstalker never said her name because Arachnid was especially sensitive to the name.

However, unlike Arachnid, Nightstalker had never failed to make someone crack. Because, unlike Arachnid, Nightstalker gave her victims time alone in the dark to doubt themselves. Some initially gained strength from this time alone, time to collect themselves and steel themselves for the next round, but given enough time, even that would fail them and they would falter, weaken, and break. This is how they lost hope, wrought with sorrow, and abandoned everything but the present and the pain they lived in. These were the ones Nightstalker left without even hope of death.

_ "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."_

It was a fitting quote, and one she had written in energon along the walls of her haven of torture cells. Nightstalker left the desolate halls of darkness and despair to the Autobot mech.

She would have to read this _Dante's Inferno_ some day.


	3. Chatty

**Author's Note:**

**Don't get used to this updating every day. When spring break ends this week I'll lose all my precious free time**

* * *

><p>Starscream had asked for an update to see if the Autobot had said anything, and Nightstalker calmly informed her easily-irate Lord that these things took time. She said she couldn't promise information today, but his breaking point was coming quickly.<p>

Nightstalker debated the prospect of solid information as she headed back down to the nearly always deserted torture chambers. It was a bit early in the game to actually get some, but with his apprehension to Arachnid's venom . . . She might be able to swing it today.

She entered the code to his door and entered to find him looking at her. "Morning," he said in greeting. Nightstalker frowned, not because he wasn't frazzled—he was clearly quaking in his boots—but because he had said good morning.

He sighed when she didn't say anything but scowl, and he shrugged. "The name's Cliffjumper. I don't think we ever properly introduced ourselves."

Nightstalker rolled her eyes then, wondering why he even bothered. "You _want_ to know the name of your torturer?" She opened the panels of her arm, revealing the three vials of Arachnid's venom.

He tensed up audibly, and his vocals shook a little with his next words. "Yeah, sure I'd like it. I doubt a torturer gets many friends, especially among Decepticons."

"It's a loner's work," she stated.

When she pulled free a vial, so said "Cliffjumper" stated nervously, "You never gave me your name."

"My designation is none of your concern when you have bigger problems." Nightstalker flicked the vial lightly at optic level to him. His lips pressed together.

"Yeah . . ." he whispered. "I sure do. You like Arachnid?"

Nightstalker raised a brow. "Now you're stalling."

He gave a weak laugh. "You're letting me."

"Maybe I am," she conceded, opening the vial. "It lets the fear set in your spark better."

"Got that last night," he concluded, nodding a bit jerkily. "Couldn't get a nanoclick of recharge last night . . ."

Nightstalker smirked at the look on his face. "Don't worry, we're not there yet," she said closing the vial and putting it away. His face visibly relaxed.

"Good!" he said, a near smile of relief touching his face. Nightstalker raised a brow again, surprised at how easy it was to make him happy. "Anyth—"

"But it's definitely happening," she cut him off, making dread pick back up. She opened the door again, bringing in the energon cube. He gave a sigh of resignation then. "I can't have you locking yourself in stasis and dying on me in the middle of this."

"Right . . ."

Nightstalker rolled his eyes. It was like he didn't even know how this stuff went. Taking the tube and forcing the injection to start through his arm, Cliffjumper gave another sigh.

"This is some life you lead."

Nightstalker quirked her brow again. "What's it matter to you?"

He gave the bark of a laugh then. "It matters a lot to me considering I'm your next victim." Cliffjumper shook his head. "I don't know . . . I guess a bot would just want more than something like this. I mean, I guess I can understand Arachnid. She's about as crazy as they get—but it's you I don't understand." His blue optics frowned at her. "You're smart. Not insane like Arachnid. You don't even seem like you're enjoying it. Well, except for that alter ego you turn into when you're doing it . . ."

Nightstalker shrugged, letting a whip out to idly twirl it. "It's my job."

"That it?" He shook his head. "Surely a gal like you wants something better."

Nightstalker scowled, standing straight and looking him square in the face. "Please do NOT tell me you're about to offer me a place with the Autobots." When he just looked at her, it seemed that indeed, he WAS going to. Nightstalker scowled furiously, shaking her head. "Look, there's no place for a femme like myself in war. It was either I did something to help the war effort or get eradicated like the rest. And I wasn't about to sit by and let myself get terminated. So, I did the only thing a femme my size could do—I started in on the torture business."

"Not true."

Nightstalker glanced up to him. "You're telling me my own history isn't true?"

Cliffjumper shook his head. "No, I'm telling you that a girl your size can do whatever she wanted, even become a fierce warrior." When Nightstalker just looked at him dubiously, he nodded his head. "I have a good friend who's about your size, and trust me, she may be small, but that girl's a wicked warrior."

Nightstalker just blinked at him. He sighed again, and she glanced to the cube. Only a little over half empty . . . C'mon, get on with it, she didn't want this small talk business . . . She nervously twirled her whip, wings twitching.

Cliffjumper shifted positions painfully, trying to ease the strain on his sore shoulders. "Look, I'm just saying, don't sell yourself short. You can do a lot more than what you think. A wise bot once told me that a bot shouldn't be measured by size alone."

"Good for you," she muttered. "Not that all this kisses and hugs business isn't just fine and dandy, but this IS a torture chamber, and once that energon cube empties it's right back to where we left off."

His eyes jumped to her arm where she carried Arachnid's venom. "Y-Yeah," he stated uncertainly. "I know. But it's nice to talk to you in between times."

Nightstalker scoffed. "It's like having small talk with your executioner before heading to the guillotine."

"Yeah, it's something you've just gotta do because you want someone to have your last moments."

Silence was the only thing that spoke after that. Nightstalker seethed to herself that she had even wasted time with him on the matter. When the energon cube finished emptying itself into his body, she kicked it aside and recoiled her whip. Cliffjumper froze when she once again pulled out the vial of Arachnid's venom, and this time, she wasn't going to hesitate in using it.

She opened the vial with experienced fingers, drawing out a slim blade of precision to cut him apart with. "Now, you know where we left off. Do you have anything you want to confess before I get started?" She taunted him by waving the venom-dipped point near him, making him cringe away.

After a moment, he finally said, "Yeah, I got a confession. Femmes look sexy in black."

Nightstalker's lips curled in disgust at his smart aft remark. "Cute, but not cute enough." She let the blade rest against the opposite side of his marked face. The old wound was puckering nastily from last night's touch of venom, and it leaked an oozing of energon. Today's wound hissed and spit, his face coiling in pain and fear as she idly trailed it across his face, around his eye, and began to dig it under the edge of his helm. His mouth clamped tight with barely controlled screams as he twitched while pain filled his sensors.

"Plenty more where this came from," Nightstalker reminded him. She dipped the glass-tipped blade in again, a weapon she had created solely for the purpose of using Arachnid's poison. Metal screeched as she scratched lines into him that made him quake in pain as the poison set in, teasing at his mind with fuzzies.

"Feel free to tell me where the Autobot base is whenever you want this to stop," Nightstalker reminded Cliffjumper as he quite clearly bit back all sounds of pain. Nightstalker left no part of him untouched by the venom, decorating his body as she pleased. The hissing of his deteriorating metal never stopped as she drew marks through his chest plating, his arms, his legs, his back. He bravely endured, hysteria locked up until he began to scream, and Nightstalker's lips quirked. Today she would get him to beg.

When there was nothing left but a few drops, Nightstalker looked up at Cliffjumper with a dark smile. "Have a drink?" She laughed when she tried to force his mouth open and he stubbornly kept it shut, twisting beneath her grip and eyes wide with unconcealed alarm. "Fine then," she relented. "Not down the throat, but we'll see how the inner wiring likes it if the outer reacts so violently."

"No!"

Nightstalker quirked a brow at him. "Oh? Then, tell me where you want it. Down the throat? Or in the wires?"

He trembled violently, not wanting it inside him at all. "Put it away," he managed weakly.

Nightstalker clucked her tongue. "That's not the answer I want. Down the throat, or down the wires?"

He looked at her with tormented blue optics, unbelieving at her cruelty. "Y-You c-can't honestly expect me to choose between _that_?" he stuttered in horror.

Nightstalker shrugged. "Time's wasting. Choose quickly, or I'll choose for you."

Cliffjumper quaked more and more as the time stretched, unable to choose his own poison. Nightstalker just made a grab at his face again, but when he kept his mouth clamped tightly shut, she moved to the exposed wiring of his shoulder. She began to tip the vial.

"No, no! Please, no!"

She held back, flicking her orange optics up to his terrified blue ones. "Oh? You have something to say?"

His azure optics filled with desperation. "Please, you know I can't tell you what you want to know!"

Nightstalker clicked her glossia again and shook her head. "Not can't. Just won't." She tipped the vial again, and his terrified voice drew to hysterical.

"No—please, don't do this—don't do it, _please_—!"

His pleading voice ended on an energon-curdling scream when the few drops of venom trickled down his super sensitive wiring. He thrashed against his bonds, head jerking and cries enough to send a shiver through the entire _NEMESIS._ Nightstalker dropped the empty vial to the side, pulling out another.

Cliffjumper's optics saw the fresh vial of Arachnid's venom and despair shuttered in on his face. That was it. He was breaking.

Nightstalker vowed to make it quick and gruesome. "Tell me what I want to know, and I promise I won't have to hurt you anymore. Just one small location, and you won't have to endure this anymore. Just one small place? The continent? The state? The river?" He shivered and didn't respond, but that was to be expected. She shrugged, wingtips quirking. "Fine then." Bringing out her curved blade from her left arm, Nightstalker gave two hacks to his left thigh. Cliffjumper howled out again, jerking in pain when she ripped up a very large chunk of protective metal from above his kneecap.

Nightstalker put her blade back in her arm and tossed his metal aside. She waved the full vial of Arachnid's venom below his face. "Hey. Hey, hey. This whole vial? It's going on those exposed wires if you don't give me a little bit of where to find this base." Cliffjumper's head jerked up in horrified terror. Nightstalker idly removed the cap.

"I—I can't . . . I can't . . ."

"Won't," she corrected him. She kept her eyes on his blue ones that were literally coiling in fear as they watched her move the vial above the exposed wires of his leg.

"Please no . . . dear Primus, I can't . . . No, no, no . . . Primus, please, spare me . . ."

"Not down here he won't," Nightstalker said. "This is my domain."

She tipped the vial. "No, no, no—please, I'm begging you, don't do this, please!"

"Then tell me at least something about this base," Nightstalker sighed. "I promise I'll stop immediately."

His mind crippling terror mounted. "No, please, no—I can't bear it, please!"

Nightstalker slowly began to pour the venom onto his exposed leg wires, and the resounding scream that splintered her mind would haunt her just as all the others did. Cliffjumper bucked and howled, optics cutting off black as the pain overloaded his sensors. The smell of important wires burning stank up the room.

"Oh, Primus! Stop! Stop, stop! Primus, please, stop! The US! The United States! We're in the United States!"

Nightstalker immediately stopped pouring the half-empty vial, but Cliffjumper didn't stop his agonized screaming as he thrashed while the venom ate his leg up, the hissing unheard beneath his anguished cries.

Nightstalker backed up, leaning against the door in front of him as she slowly waited for him to gather control of himself. He continued to twitch and shudder, moaning, "Oh Primus . . . Primus help me, please . . . Primus . . ."

"I think that will be all for today."

He trembled violently as he lifted his head, energon dripping from his multiple wounds and pooling on the ground with hardened lava and murderous poison. She nodded to his horrified, agonized, and desperately guilty optics. "Starscream will be most pleased."

Nightstalker turned and walked from the room as he let out a wail of despair behind her. She left him to bemoan his weakness alone in the dark, snapping off his lights and locking him back inside. Nightstalker accessed her communicator.

"Hey Starscream, we've got progress."

There was a moment before he responded. "What is it?"

"An approximation of where the Autobot base is located. The United States."

There was a pause. "_Just_ an approximation? And how do you know he wasn't lying?"

"Not this one," she said back, riding the elevator up. "That was all truth, you could see it in his optics. He hated himself. And as for approximate, don't worry. Within two days, you'll have the answer. Tomorrow he'll clamp up tighter than ever, but after one more good day of torture, he'll crack."

Starscream made a thoughtful sound across the comm. "I see." He gave a dark chuckle. "Then my new plans may be set in motion. Get this information in these two days, Nightstalker, and you will be rewarded well."

"Certainly," she responded. "Nightstalker over and out."


	4. Afraid

**Author's Note:**

**A little more about Nightstalker and what drives her . . .  
>Another quick and gruesome torture method . . .<br>**

**Florence + The Machine  
>"Howl"<strong>

**"If you could only see the beast you've made of me  
>I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free<br>The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound  
>I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground!"<br>**

* * *

><p>She left Cliffjumper to wrestle all day and all night with his guilt. She wanted it to wear on his mind. Then, the next morning, Nightstalker brought in another energon cube to the now familiar cell.<p>

Cold blue optics touched her. His embittered voice filled the room. "Why couldn't you have just let me die?"

She didn't grace him with the obvious answer of why, but instead she fixated the tube from the cube to his arm. He gave a harsh laugh at her silence in the dim cell.

"What a way for me to live, eh? Refueling me with energon just to spill it all over again!"

Nightstalker moved back and crossed her arms, refusing to let his words affect him. For some reason, his managed to rattle her a bit more than the others, and she couldn't quite figure it out. Maybe it just meant they had had too much small talk the other day while he was recharging.

For the most part, Cliffjumper was silent as he already trembled in fear of the torture to come. However, he broke it again, and Nightstalker cursed with some ill luck that her captive was talkative. "You never did answer," Cliffjumper finally said. "Why Decepticons?"

"Autobots don't allow torture," Nightstalker stated.

He gave a tired sigh. "Yeah, but was that really all that moves you?"

Nightstalker flicked an invisible speck of dirt with her claws. "My loyalties always belonged to my brother."

"And where is he now?"

Nightstalker's vocals twisted up at the memory of Fli-Ni. Her loyalties to NightFlier had everything to do with why she was with Decepticons, and it wasn't even his designation in the war that mattered. Cliffjumper heard her silence, optics staring at her.

"You don't have anything here . . . do you?"

Nightstalker glared at him with orange optics. "Only because Autobots took him away from me," she stated evenly back. Cliffjumper flinched then.

"I see." He shook his head, looking at his half empty cube. "Guess some things will never be forgiven. Which battle?"

Her hands clenched. "He wasn't in any battle," she hissed at him, feeling her rarer cruel side rising. Cliffjumper looked up, sensing her pain. "He was just an innocent bystander!"

"Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time," the Autobot mech heaved with a resigned sigh. "I got it . . ." Nightstalker twitched as she waited for the cube to empty, wanting nothing more than to spill his energon now for bringing it up. "While I can't really speak for the Autobots, or even the one that killed your brother . . . I'm sorry."

Nightstalker slashed her whip across his front, causing him to arch in pain. His blue optics widened at her sudden ferocity. "Your word means nothing."

Cliffjumper stared at her as the last of the energon trickled in. Nightstalker removed the tube and kicked both it and the energon cube to the side. "My question remains the same, albeit, a little different," she told him thinly, lassoing her whip. "If the Autobot base is in America, where AT in America is it?"

His blue optics flickered. "Over my dead body."

"Pleasantly arranged."

Nightstalker vented her bottled frustrations on the red Autobot mech, forcing him to take the lacerations that another deserved. She knew the sight of that broad back that had turned away from her brother. For that, she would never forgive him, and because he was Autobot, she would always be Decepticon.

Cliffjumper took the whipping resignedly, knowing there was no escaping it and knowing that she was using him as an outlet now for her hurt and anger. Nightstalker purposely struck his wounded areas just to hear him scream, the way her brother's last scream had ended so abruptly before the explosion, just for the sake of hearing an Autobot scream.

It was some time before Nightstalker had worked off enough steam to reign in her hot head and begin the interrogation in earnest. Coiling her whips back into place, Nightstalker used a hand to bring his left one down. It seemed that she had been a bit uneven with his wounds—the right knee and the right upper arm, but nothing major on the left. She would change that now.

"The Autobot base," she repeated hollow. It didn't even matter now. She didn't care. "Where is it?"

He took a brave breath. "Not telling."

Nightstalker let her lips quirk up. "Great. That means more fun for me." She took his hand. "Such strong hands," she told him idly. He immediately curled his hand into a protective fist, and the sight made Nightstalker laugh loudly with amusement. "You really are something else, you know that?" She had always seen some type of defiance from her captives, but his by far were the most eccentric. She clucked her glossia and shook her head. "Until you tell me exactly where the Autobot base is, I'll have fun picking apart your hand piece by piece."

He didn't respond, not trusting himself to speak, and Nightstalker just smirked and brought out her sparsely used precision cutting tools. Carefully beginning, Nightstalker clearly heard his stifled sound of terror as she cut apart his first finger, shaving off the metal like a layer of skin. It wasn't long before this gruesome process had Cliffjumper screaming in pain again, shouting and pleading for her to stop.

She didn't, of course. He hadn't given the location of the Autobot base, and she would steadily keep the pain high today knowing he wasn't going to break. Slicing off the plating over his hands and exposing the soft insides, the wiring that made up his fingers, a smile played at the edges of Nightstalker's lips. He would break tomorrow, though. Today was to get him to regret not speaking up.

With his entire hand stripped raw of any protective shell, Nightstalker pocketed the knife briefly to tap her claws against the sensitive wiring. "Are we going to speak yet?" she taunted him mercilessly.

He didn't speak again, and if not for the screaming she would have wondered if he had tried to offline his vocal processor. She sighed as if a shame, shaking her head. "I thought better of you. Brace yourself—this one's gonna hurt."

Nightstalker dug her claws into the mech and penetrated to the wiring beneath. Cliffjumper screamed, but that scream amplified to piercing when she dug around in his finger to get a good grip on his slick wiring, and tugged and pulled the wire free. The nerve had to be awash in splintering pain held bare in her grip because Cliffjumper's optics had flickered black again.

Nightstalker took her time in pulling each set of wires in each finger taunt and jerking, knowing the pain was more than would be excruciating for him. As she moved on to the next finger, she cajoled, "You know, this WILL stop once I get the location of the Autobot base . . ."

His gasp was nearly a sob of pain, and he wept, "Please, I beg of you, please stop . . . for pity's sake—stop!"

"Don't like the way I'm mutilating you?" she snarled at him, turning harsh in an instant knowing that he was weeping. Now was the time to set aside all pleasantries and turn as cold as space itself. "Tell me where the fragging base is!" Nightstalker tore into the next finger, groping through the insides until she could wrap the wire around her finger. Cliffjumper's screams escalated as he jerked uselessly against the stasis cuff. "Tell me, you glitching slag heap! Where is the base?"

He wailed in response, a wordless howl to prevent himself from telling her outright where to find his friends. Nightstalker yanked and pulled the bleeding wiring apart, his energon gushing from the wounds and making her grip slick. "Where is the base!" she bellowed at him again, tearing her claws through the fourth finger. His scream's rose in agonizing melody, echoing down the halls, and glazing inside Nightstalker's mind. Cliffjumper's screams.

She yanked relentlessly, pulling the veins and nerves free of his body. Cliffjumper's voice box suddenly gave out, fritzing before falling completely silent. It was maliciously eerie that he was still screaming in complete silence because his mouth was open wide and his lips pulled back over his teeth.

She smacked him once for good measure, knowing a smack would still hurt but cost his pride more than a punch. "Where is the base!" she shouted at him, letting her voice crack sharp like her whips. "Where is the base!" she repeated it for him over and over, letting it ingrain on his mind. She grasped the last finger, cutting through and gouging around the insides to grab his wires. He howled silently, unable to do anything but watch as she dismembered his hand with brutal ruthlessness. "Where is the pit spawned base!"

Her voice died out again leaving them in silence save for the quick splats of energon collecting in a pool on the floor. "You like how that sounds?" she taunted him, slapping him hard again. "You like hearing the sound of your body ripping like the flesh of a human?" Nightstalker drove all her claws into his palm, tearing maliciously what possibly remained. She kept quiet, letting him hear the sounds of spitting electricity, shrieking metal, and the indescribable sounds of his wiring slicing open and gushing.

She hit him again when he threatened to fall into a stasis. "Where is the Autobot base?" she hissed at him. She raked her claws across his front, letting her claws shred open the festering wounds he bore from Arachnid's venom of the day before. His body arched and shuddered, but his screams were still unheard to the heavens. "Where is your base!" she snapped, slashing her claws across him again, more of his energon on her today than any other day.

A static-filled moan finally left Cliffjumper's lips, audible this time as his body gained the time it needed to reboot necessary systems. "What was that?" she growled. Nightstalker mimicked his sound cruelly, slapping his face again. "Where is the Autobot base? Speak up!"

It was a bit before the word made itself clear, and even then Nightstalker barely heard it because his voice was a breathy rasp.

"Mercy . . ."

She started, staring with wide optics as he lifted his one-horned head. Chaste blue optics touched her hateful orange ones like the brush of angel's wings. "Mercy . . ." he whispered again desperately, eyes searching hers. "I beg of you . . . but that . . ."

With sudden ferocity, Nightstalker slammed her claws through the left side of his face, mutilating that too. She pushed his hand, mangled beyond recognition as a mass of tender energon, pieces of broken metal, and wiring away.

"Don't think I haven't forgotten Arachnid's venom," she snarled darkly at him, making him writhe in pain as she dug her finger's deeper. "And don't think I haven't forgotten what I was designed after!" Letting the tips of her claws transform open, Nightstalker let the lava flow from within. Cliffjumper shrieked again, his screams rebounding off the desolate cell walls as he writhed beneath her cruel grip. Nightstalker quickly shut off the flow though, not wanting to go too deep lest she accidentally offline him for good.

She slowly pulled her hand free of his face. Cliffjumper moaned wordlessly, shaking and shivering in terror of her as she approached close.

"I haven't forgotten any of my pretty little tools," she whispered to him. He fought for his breath, shivering and quaking violently while little sobs slipped past his lips. "And I'm just getting started on your body. There's always another hand—" A despairing cry punctuated her statement. "And I haven't even began here," she reminded him, and Nightstalker lightly tapped at his interface panel.

Cliffjumper gave some semblance of a moan or a sob both, trembling when she touched him. Nightstalker was suddenly glad that Cliffjumper couldn't find the strength to raise his head because she suddenly couldn't keep up her callous expression.

"However . . . we'll save those for tomorrow."

Nightstalker beat a hasty retreat, not knowing why she was suddenly leaving him when a bit more should have been in the wings. Cliffjumper's voice plagued her as she left, rasping hopelessly, "Please . . . I beg of you, mercy . . . If you would only grant me mercy, please . . . mercy . . . mercy . . . mercy . . . mercy . . ."

It was only when Nightstalker was walking through the halls towards her room and her berth did she suddenly realize why Cliffjumper's voice pleading for mercy was shaking her.

She was afraid.


	5. Mercy

Nightstalker stared at the ceiling of her room, lying prone on her berth. She hadn't managed to get much recharge after leaving Cliffjumper alone in the dungeons.

She couldn't understand why out of all the bots she had tortured over the years, why was HE getting under her skin. Nightstalker had taken decontamination baths after these things, but she had never scrubbed herself so thoroughly before, as if the energon on her afterwards was a sickly plague.

She felt nothing for this mech. Infatuation was a rare to nonexistent thing for Nightstalker, and it was no different in this situation. Turning restless onto her stomach, Nightstalker debated herself.

That was possibly it. Cliffjumper had a big mouth, and more than once he had opened it enough to make her start thinking about herself. What kind of prisoner made his torturer doubt her very existence as worthless and meaningless? Agitated again, Nightstalker tossed a couple more times. She blamed it on the fact that he was trying to get under her metal. He wanted her to doubt herself and take pity on him. Nightstalker clenched her fists. No, she wasn't about to take pity on a loathsome _Autobot_ of all bots.

Nightstalker's wings twitched. Primus knew she hadn't even felt like flying the past few days with her endless free time. Nightstalker scowled to herself. She was a seeker of all the pit-spawned things! She should be loving to fly! Angry and infuriated, Nightstalker tossed and turned again, restless. She wanted to attack his vocal processor today until he couldn't speak to her even if he wanted to, but logic won out that she needed him able to speak so she could get the information Starscream lusted for.

Nightstalker shifted again. Fli-Ni would know what to do. Her brother had always been a smart bot, cunning, and that had always impressed her. Nightstalker sighed, legs chafing each other. Fli-Ni. She focused in on him, remembering his cute form with his little wings as he would swindle himself into tight places to explore, or the way he could swipe energon cubes for the both of them to feast on. Her cruel side began to harden. Her thoughts turned venomous at the remembrance of that broad back that had turned away from Fli-Ni while he pleaded for help.

Her hands fisted. That Autobot had left him. The explosion still rang in her audio receptors. No Autobot deserved compassion after that, and Cliffjumper was no better. He was in league with the Autobots, and Nightstalker's lust for revenge finally propelled her to her feet.

She sat up. It was morning again, and she had stalled on his next torture for long enough. Standing and pushing away her feeling of discomfort, she wondered briefly what he would say to her today.

It wouldn't wait long, whatever it was. Nightstalker headed down the hallways and into the far elevator, letting it take her down into the dark chambers below. Taking another energon cube, she typed the password to his cell and entered.

Cliffjumper didn't say anything in greeting today. It nearly caused a sigh of relief to slip from her lips, but she forced the sound to stay inside and just hooked him to the cube. Stepping away to wait for him to refuel, it suddenly occurred to Nightstalker that his lips were moving. They trembled, forcing themselves open.

" . . . Hey there."

She flinched back, eyes widening at him. He was still covered in the soot from the explosion that had caused his capture, and now energon stained him too. His left hand was mutilated beyond recognition, he bore a gaping wound in his right shoulder that still had caked and hardened lava on it, his right knee still festered from Arachnid's venom, the left side of his face was marred with the punctures of her fingers and solidifying lava, the whip lashes all over his body had to pulse together in agonizing harmony, the slices from Arachnid's venom festered over the extent of his body, and her own claw marks decorated him from front to back. That . . . _That_ wasn't enough to keep him from speaking to her!

Cliffjumper managed to bring his weak head up after a long moment. Those weary blue optics of his touched her orange ones, flickering with uncertainty and trying to focus in on her shadowy form. "I—I . . ." A trembling breath passed through his once-strong frame and a shiver. "I don't understand . . . how you can do this to people."

Nightstalker refused to answer, because the thought had unwittingly crossed her mind. Though, it wasn't everyone else that had bothered her, just Cliffjumper, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why.

Cliffjumper slowly shook his head as the cube emptied halfway. "I don't know how you managed to live with yourself . . . Or do it . . . I know I couldn't."

"You can't be soft sparked," she stated as empty as she could. It was a true statement, and one she had been taught in an early age of torture.

He gave another embittered laugh. "You don't strike me like the type, but I'm known to be mistaken." Cliffjumper shook his head slowly. "I know I'm too soft for this . . ."

There was a long beat of silence, and then he gave a heavily sarcastic laugh, energon spitting up from his lips. "You know?" he said to her, shaking his head again when his blue optics pierced her. "At first, for some pit-spawned moment, I thought better of you when we started." Nightstalker tried not to flinch. "I don't know why. Maybe it was fleeting despair. Primus knows it is now."

They stayed silent this time, and Nightstalker shook off his words as best she could when he cube emptied all the way. She kicked the cube to the side, thinking she was probably going to need to another before today was over with—he was losing too much energon in too many places. He was probably too low as it was.

She tapped his good hand. "Shall we start here today?"

He took a trembling breath. "I'd rather not . . ." he whispered.

For some reason, Nightstalker listened to Cliffjumper. "Where is the Autobot base? That's all I want to know."

As she pulled out the half-used vial of Arachnid's venom, a hard shudder ran through his body at the sight. "I—I can't . . . You know this."

"Not can't, but—"

"Then I won't," Cliffjumper fixed himself before she could. She dipped her blade into the green liquid. "I won't betray them, and you know it . . ."

"Not today," she said. She fixed it under his chin, forcing his gaze up when the venom ate through the bottom of his chin. His blue optics were forced level with hers. "Today, you break."

She dipped the glass back into the vial, but was surprised when her communicator gave a ring. Startled, she blinked and answered. "Nightstalker here?" she asked, more confused than anything.

_"Nightstalker,"_ she heard Starscream hiss into the comm. _"Kill the Autobot and bring him down to the mines. Immediately."_

She stared at Cliffjumper who lifted his head to look at her. She gazed blankly at him, not understanding her orders. "What?"

_"You heard me!"_ he barked before quieting again. _"Kill the Autobot and bring him down to the mines quickly. Megatron has something nasty planned with that dark energon . . . and I don't intend to be that test subject. Immediately, Nightstalker."_

Nightstalker felt confused when Starscream ended the transmission there. Cliffjumper's blue optics were hazy with the amount of pain he had suffered, and they flickered diligently as he tried to focus her in clearly.

Kill the Autobot prisoner. Easy enough. Nightstalker put away the venom with mechanical movements, her own mind stalling her final motions. Cliffjumper's optics looked at her curiously, unknowing of how to take her new actions.

Kill the Autobot prisoner? Nightstalker gaped at Cliffjumper, suddenly unknowing how to take a life. He had spoken to her when she was only there to hurt him in immoral ways. No, he hadn't just spoken to her, he had conversed with her and made comments that made her think for once about who she was and what she did. He gave her words with such subtlety that it made her metal crawl.

Kill the Autobot prisoner. That was her charge, and she should carry it out without hesitation. Nightstalker watched blankly as Cliffjumper frowned, trying to figure out what was going on through her mind and why she kept gawking at him. Cliffjumper's blue optics flickered, and it suddenly hit Nightstalker exactly how easy it was to stop his optics into complete darkness.

Kill the Autobot prisoner. Why was she hesitating to kill Cliffjumper? He was just another Autobot hostage and no different from the others. He was nothing new, and Nightstalker couldn't understand her hesitation. Why did Cliffjumper's words hit her harder? Why did Cliffjumper's actions strike her as more endearing? Why did she care more about Cliffjumper than any other prisoner she had? He was just another mech, and he shouldn't bother her as much as he did, and she fell into confusion that he held such power over her.

Kill the Autobot prisoner. Cliffjumper's crystal blue optics flickered again, and it was then Nightstalker realized Cliffjumper still had no idea what she was supposed to do. Cliffjumper cocked his head unlike the other prisoners, and Cliffjumper's blue optics scrutinized her unlike the other prisoners. Cliffjumper was studying her, and Cliffjumper was trying to understand—Cliffjumper. Cliffjumper. Cliffjumper.

Kill Cliffjumper. It was not an order Nightstalker was equipped to handle.

Nightstalker suddenly blanked her face, causing Cliffjumper to startle. "You need another dose of energon," she stated, and she turned on her heel and walked out.

She was shaking hard. She was a slim femme, small, petit, all of the above of tiny and she wasn't a fighter. She didn't even know how she was going to carry him—it was more like drag. Even worse, she had never tried to play off the irrefutable Soundwave, but then again, he shouldn't sense any deception from her . . .

Nightstalker struggled to keep her hands from shaking as she accessed the only computer source on the lower levels. She had never tried to access from this point, and she had never tried to deliberately sabotage the system before. Gaining access, Nightstalker controlled her scared shaking to focus in on her problem at hand, bypassing firewalls and digging deeper into the main hardware of the _NEMESIS_. Nightstalker went as deep as she dared, and she planted a quick-made virus there.

It infected the systems immediately, taking effect instantaneously. It was just like her others to make the computers exceedingly slow and sluggish to pick important things up, but this time she was sure it had knocked out all the cameras too. She took a stabilizing breath before accessing her communicator.

"Soundwave?" she said uncertainly to him, proud that her voice didn't quaver and that she sounded perfectly sheepishly guilty—which was true on one account. "I think my virus did a little more that time . . . Nothing was supposed to happen to the cameras, I swear, but I think it malfunctioned a little . . ."

He didn't say anything, as was expected. However, Nightstalker caught the feeling over the quiet line of tired resignation as Soundwave clearly moved to the nearest computer to fix her blunder.

Nightstalker cut the line immediately, dashing back to Cliffjumper's cell. He blinked hazily at her, and she cringed to herself at all his wounds—this was going to be very painful, and he really _did_ need another stabilizing dose of energon. There was no time for that now.

He recoiled when she let her nanites crawl over him, but then his optics widened huge when he found his important systems rebooting; his weapons came online, his targeting systems, and his homing signal blazed on full force.

"What—"

"Brace yourself," she said brusquely. After letting his legs free of their stasis cuffs, she released him from the cuffs of his hands. He scared her stiff when he screamed loudly at the movement of his exceedingly damaged body, but she comforted herself that they were levels under—no one would hear them.

Instead, Nightstalker grunted low as his full weight suddenly bore down on her, nearly making her buck at the knees. She shifted him so she was under his right side with his festering right knee, gasping, "Your weight—take your weight—take your weight—"

The strain eased only slightly when Cliffjumper forced a shaky leg beneath himself, unable to sustain any weight on the right knee she had ruined with Arachnid's venom. His labored breaths filled her audio receptors as she tried to guide him from the room reeking of energon, lava, and poison.

"Where . . . are we going?" he gasped out, warm breath on her ear.

"I don't know," Nightstalker said flatly, hoping to Primus that they could possibly wing this or they were both dead. She didn't take the time to close the door behind her, she just focused on getting them moving one staggering step at a time, knowing they had possibly the tiniest window the sun could ever grace them with.

It wasn't until they were riding up nervously in the elevator that Cliffjumper asked, "Why?"

Nightstalker scowled to herself. It was going to be a question she would ask herself for the rest of her life. "I don't know," she muttered. She struggled to hold nearly his full weight that sagged against her. The door opened to a thankfully empty hallway.

"Seems you don't know a lot . . ." he whispered to her as they took their first steps in the deserted hallway, but she shushed him silent.

Nightstalker's orange eyes constantly swept the place. If one thing she did know, is why this wing was empty of all Decepticons. Because, Decepticon or not, torture wasn't pretty, and Cliffjumper's screams had to carry sometimes. Besides, it was like a blanket of death stifled you down the hallways to the torture chamber, so Nightstalker didn't fault them for avoiding the place like the Plague.

Oh, dear PRIMUS their progress was worth howling over! It seemed like it took hours to move down the mere extent of that hallway as they turned the next corner. Nightstalker let out a sigh when there was no one here either, but as they moved deeper into the ship she knew there would be more Vehicons around. Besides, Soundwave was liable to get all functioning back soon and see her helping along their captive.

Nightstalker's breath turned shallow like Cliffjumper's. He was literally panting in her ear now, body trembling in the sheer effort not to scream out at the movements that irritated his wounds, limp leg dragging uselessly in between them. Periodically, he would bite down hard on Nightstalker's audio receptor and whimper, a pathetic sound that tore at her spark.

Slag these pit-spawned hallways cursed by Primus himself to the bottom of Unicron's afterburner—! Nightstalker nearly turned down the last hall but luckily saw a Vehicon coming their way. She quickly pulled Cliffjumper back, causing him to keen a small sound between his dentures. As gentle as she possibly could, Nightstalker sat him on the ground and leaned him against the hallway wall. Filled with terror, Nightstalker let her left arm pop open and took out the wicked-looking-only blade from her arm, and she brandished it uncertainly. She had never been in combat before! Below the neck was the weakest point—just shove it up hard and hope she took him down in one blow . . .

Nightstalker's spark slammed violently in her chest as she waited for the Vehicon to come around the corner. She couldn't do this, she couldn't do this—she couldn't possibly manage to kill him. Nightstalker's shivers stuck in her ridged form as she waited painfully for the Vehicon to come, listening for his steps—

But he never came. Trembling, Nightstalker peered around the edge and saw empty hallways again. He must have gone into one of the adjoining rooms! She let out a heavily relieved sigh, falling limp and wings drooping a second before snapping straight. Shoving the blade back into its compartment, Nightstalker nervously rechecked all the hallways before leaning back down for Cliffjumper.

"All right," she whispered in a miniscule voice, terrified beyond belief. "Let's go."

Despite how he border-lined on falling into a forced stasis, Cliffjumper let her wrap his arm around her shoulders and haul him to his feet. Glancing back down the hallways they had come, Nightstalker cursed—they were leaving a thick and bright trail of energon, and she suspected belatedly that most of it came from Cliffjumper's mangled left hand.

Nightstalker glanced over at his face. The side she had messed up was on the opposite side, so she could only see his lips pressing tightly together and optic focused in on their escape route ahead—those blue optics fixated determinedly on the far door.

She swore each step was extremely loud and she feared a Vehicon would look out and spot them, but nothing happened except for their agonizingly slow staggering steps. Nightstalker's mind skittered over the frightening thought of Soundwave seeing them soon—he was either done by now, or he was about to be. Her measly virus wouldn't hold him out for much if any longer.

Nightstalker and Cliffjumper made it to the door with a desperate lung. Typing the code swiftly, the door slid open with a brutal gust of wind. Nightstalker thinned her lips hearing Cliffjumper's hitching breath in her ear.

"Plan?" he gasped helplessly in her ear.

Seeing how high up they were made Nightstalker dizzy for Cliffjumper. This wasn't going to work. "Grab on and don't let go!" she shouted to him. She took his other arm and wrapped both around her neck, cringing at the sight of his mutilated hand. The mass of wires situated themselves at her front. "Don't let go!" she repeated.

"You're crazy!" he managed to belt back before heaving deep breaths again. Nightstalker didn't think twice but transformed down into her tiny alt mode of a Cybertronian jet, thrusters kicking in on full power when they began to plummet.

She heard the angry whir of Laserbeak before doors clamped shut behind her, nearly taking the tips of her wings with it. Scrap. Soundwave was on them.

The jagged winds disturbed by the hulking _NEMESIS _whipped them about further. Nightstalker didn't try to guide where they were going at first, she just tried to keep them steady so she wouldn't lose Cliffjumper from her back. Her metal shrieked and groaned at the abuse, and warning signals filled her mind that she was pushing her thrusters too hard. She ignored them and rode out the angry tempest as best she could with a dead weight passenger.

Then, once they broke free of that maelstrom, they plummeted like rocks. Nightstalker gave a stifled shriek as she gave a hard thrust forwards so they would have more ground to cover as she maneuvered her engines painfully. She couldn't think about impact as they descended at an alarming rate to the rocky surface below—of course, it had to be fragging rocks!—and felt Cliffjumper's grip slacking.

"Hold on!" she bellowed at him in no uncertain terms. Her angry order managed to tighten his hold on her miniature alt form that could barely support him. Her spark leapt to her throat as she blasted every available emergency thruster on high when the ground rushed up to meet them.

The collision was detrimental to Nightstalker's wellbeing. Metal shrieked and tore from her body as friction sank its claws into her body. They skidded, and she screamed in pain as heat rose and triggered her sensors, pieces ripping away at jagged edges. She lost a heavy weight sometime to which she heard an agonized echoing scream, and then the world blacked briefly when she smashed into something hard.

Nightstalker came to half a second later with a heavy groan. She didn't want to move. She just wanted to lie there, but that was out of the question. With a shudder and howling body parts, she forced herself to transform, jagged parts grating painfully as she staggered to her feet. Energon was leaking from herself now, and she couldn't tell exactly where it came from, only a vague all around feeling.

Nightstalker's optics took in barren rocks, orangy/brown to the color, endless miles of empty rock and mountains pinning them around, and she found both her and Cliffjumper incredibly lucky that they had landed somewhere in a valley-ish area. She considered herself twice as lucky that she was awake, much less could even move after that treacherous crash.

Following her trail of energon and parts was easy to find Cliffjumper moaning on the ground. Another gash had ripped through his good shoulder, and the fall had twisted his mangled hand more.

Hearing the roar of engines, Nightstalker lifted her gaze to the still _NEMESIS_ far above their heads. It wasn't moving, which was a horrible thought in itself, but it caused fear to coil in her throat when the bottom hatch opened. Five seekers fell out.

Nightstalker cursed their ill luck, grabbing beneath Cliffjumper's pits and not stopping to be shy of his pain this time. Pulling and dragging, his screams lead them to their location quicker, but she managed to get his body squeezed between the face of a mountain and a rock, and she filled the gap with quaking movements.

The roar of seekers filled her ears as each fell in front of her. She only had one gun. She let it pop free of her back and she caught it, bringing around front without truly knowing how to use it. Those five Decepticon seekers stood like death in front of her, lasers humming and pointed her way.

Nightstalker hoped to Primus that those Autobots had tracked Cliffjumper's emanating emergency signal. She hoped to Primus that they could come in and save the day, guns blazing.

Nightstalker was no one's brawler.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Internet cookie to whoever can tell me why Nightstalker suddenly saved Cliffjumper's aft )**


	6. Rescue

_"Give up, Nightstalker. You cannot win."_

The voices in her head were really starting to bug her. They had started when the bottom hatch of the NEMESIS had opened for the seekers, but it was constant and nagging now, suavely intoning that she should quit now and just give up.

_"If you abandon the Autobot now, I may punish you sparingly. After all, I happen to like you, Nightstalker, and enjoy your company. I do need an effective torturer, and by Starscream's account you had almost managed to make him break in less than a week. Admirable progress."_

Nightstalker blinked slowly, tiny machine gun raised to the Vehicons that were all taller and bulkier than her.

_"Admirable, but alas, just as easily expendable. Make your choice quickly, Nightstalker, or I will make it for you."_

OH.

It had taken her too long to realize that her communication line was open and the newly returned Megatron was speaking to her, his voice in her audio receptors like a sinister conscience.

It was chilling. She had never been on this side of Megatron's wrath before because she had been on his good side, to put it in any kind of words. He had seemed to . . . like her? Perhaps like was too strong a word. He approved of her, in a way. When she had been brought to him as a child, she had been allowed to live the destruction of Kaon. Nightstalker did her duties quietly and submissively, and her torture skills became known, thus making her more respectable in his eyes. But mostly, Nightstalker remembered the multiple times where she warmed the Decepticon leader's berth, the last time being before he left three years ago.

Nightstalker couldn't suppress a shudder before she glanced back at Cliffjumper stuffed between the mountain and rock. His blue optics blinked at her with desperate fear, completely relying on her to save him.

Her spark jumped. With one measly blink, he had transported her to the past and howling Cybertronians, the burning of Kaon, and the thunderous gunfire of war. One measly blink of blue optics reminding her of another so helpless and weak. Fli-Ni's pleads for help echoed in her memory banks, and his crushed wings glazed in her mind, the energon pooling around him—HIS energon. Cliffjumper lay in a pool of his own energon. The stark resemblance of Cliffjumper's helplessness paralleled to Fli-Ni, and Nightstalker cringed, rocking on her heels when the memory of that explosion shattered her line of thinking.

If she couldn't save her brother then by Primus she was _going_ to save Cliffjumper!

Nightstalker ignored Megatron as well as she could and plunged in, not giving Megatron the chance to make the choice for her—this was _her_ decision, and she _was_ going to save Cliffjumper!

Nightstalker open fired on the five Vehicons, spraying them all before realizing belatedly that she should take them out one by one so she wouldn't be as outnumbered. They open fired back, and Nightstalker shrieked when the lasers shot past her body that scrunched up small. This passed for several long seconds to which she felt one laser graze her shoulder, and then, a blast caught the closest Vehicon and burst through his chest. The Vehicon fell flat, dead.

With a wild glance behind her, Nightstalker saw a nearly glitching Cliffjumper struggling to aim his right gun despite how his shoulder screamed in agony.

A hand struck her face. Nightstalker staggered back, felt her gun slung away from her body, and metal cracked against her face again. She grunted, falling on her back. Her optics frizzed in and out, struggling to focus the distorted vision as a Vehicon brushed by her. She heard Cliffjumper's agonized scream, and anger blasted through her fear.

Nightstalker leapt up, whips jumping out and onlining with electricity instantly. Her mind registered the Vehicon's feet, one grinding down on Cliffjumper's weak knee and the other crushing the tip of his gun closed so he couldn't attack. Not that he would. He was too weak anymore, and his optics were offline he was in so much pain. Filled with the fury of the desperate, Nightstalker lashed both whips around the Vehicon's neck, felt them latch, and pulled—hard.

To say that she was surprised at her strength was an understatement as she squeaked when she tossed him into his friend. Nightstalker took a protective stance in front of Cliffjumper, yelping uncertainly at the Vehicons, "Back, back!" and lashing her electrical whips at them as if keeping lions at bay. They hesitated, eyes full of hate yet wary of her deadly effective weapons.

The opening blast of a ground bridge caused everyone's eyes to jump to the opening. With a gallant rev of his engine, Nightstalker watched with intense relief to see Optimus Prime transform while raising his guns high.

"Autobots—" A small blue motorcycle dashed down, moving twice as fast as her leader as she sped towards the Decepticons. "Attack!"

Nightstalker couldn't even stop to think of what that meant as she saw the blue motorcycle transform, and she was shocked to see that it was a femme. Not only that, but the femme was roughly her size with wicked blades on the side of arms. The blue motorcycle Autobot femme literally threw herself into one of the Vehicons, slinging him to the ground mere moments after Optimus had given the order.

More seekers broke away from the ship, and Nightstalker was aware of five more joining the fray. However, all five Autobots were engaging, Optimus, a big green bulky one, and a smaller yellow bot at the front. A red and white ambulance engaged with the blue femme at Nightstalker's overrun side, scattering the Vehicons.

The last three seekers fought against the nearly feral femme and the other red and white mech, but Nightstalker was left to fend off the last one, as if the Autobot expected her to be able to fight. Did they account that kill to her? A worm squirmed in her stomach. Cliffjumper had done that drunken with pain and unable to rise! She couldn't do something like that when she was perfectly healthy!

Instead, Nightstalker yelped in fear when the Vehicon open fired on her, and she cast her eyes around wildly for her machine gun. Unfortunately, it had been knocked far away across the ground, so she wiggled to avoid bullets and threw the tips of her electric whips at the Vehicon, each kept at bay by the other's attacks. It wasn't until the blue femme tackled Nightstalker's foe and moved on to slice at the next did Nightstalker manage to be useful.

Taking advantage of her temporarily fallen adversary, Nightstalker used her fright to her advantage and slung both whips down on top of the Vehicon. The Decepticon howled in pain as the high voltage of electricity shocked through his body, but Nightstalker was terrified of him getting back up. Scared past using her wits, Nightstalker slammed both whips down on him again and again, hoping to Primus that he wouldn't get up again, trembling hard, breathing too fast—

A gunshot finished the Vehicon quickly, and Nightstalker jerked in panic and swung a whip out blindly. The mech recoiled as the whip cracked just short of his face, blue optics staring down at her trepidation.

Nightstalker shook hard as she forced herself to stand down to Optimus Prime, recoiling her whips. She was barely aware of the Decepticon warship disappearing in the distance, but she was _very_ aware of the sets of guns pointed her way. Nightstalker flinched away from the blue femme when she shot past her to the red mech she had protected.

A stifled choking sound emitted from behind her. "C-Cliff—!"

Nightstalker's gaze jumped up to Optimus again when his eyes lifted to look past her at the femme. "Arcee—"

Nightstalker's spark did an uncanny twist and shrunk in fear. If that femme figured out who she was, she'd want her head for fraternizing with Arachnid—The red and white bot brushed by the rest, including the femme before his gears hinged up in shock.

"By the All Spark . . ."

Nightstalker turned, looking at the medic that bent over Cliffjumper's excruciatingly critical condition. His hands hovered uncertainly before he whipped out a welder and set to work immediately on something—probably trying to stop the hideous flow of energon that had locked him into stasis. The blue femme froze again, optics dilating in growing horror as she took in several of his multiple wounds. Her metal locked tight, and her fists clenched.

"Arachnid . . ."

Nightstalker shied away from the femme when she prowled in her direction. "I recognize those wounds," she growled with a noticeable quaver in her voice. "That _poison_," she hissed. "That's only Arachnid's doing. So where is she!"

Nightstalker flinched and shrank into herself at the femme's accusing voice. "Arcee," Optimus repeated, "do—"

"I know those wounds!" Arcee shouted again, causing Nightstalker to cringe and shrink, wings pressing into herself as if to make herself smaller. She thought Arachnid did it. If she ever learned that _she_ had done it, Nightstalker was sure to be reduced to scrap in an instant. ALL the Autobots would want her spark as payment for what she had done to Cliffjumper. But—but she had saved his life . . . Nightstalker trembled, suddenly realizing that nothing she did could possibly pay for what she had done. They would never forgive her.

"I'll have her head for this!" Arcee cursed, rigid form making chills rip through Nightstalker's system. "Where is she! Tell me where she is!" Nightstalker flinched back when Arcee moved forward again, and she hit a broad chest. She cowered away from the mech, squeezing in tighter to herself.

She couldn't breathe. They were all around her, they were going to kill her for what she had done to Cliffjumper, and she couldn't breathe around the panic constricting her throat and stripping her of all self control. When Arcee began to demand again, a scared whimper slipped from Nightstalker's throat and she transformed, shooting straight up into the sky. A hand reached after her.

Nightstalker didn't go far. She wanted to make sure Cliffjumper was going to be okay, but there was no telling what the Autobots would do to her. She landed high up on the mountainside, cowering behind a rock. Shaking in terror, it was several long minutes before she could pluck up courage enough to peek around the edge of the rock. They had ceased aiming their weapons at her, but they still looked up at her except for the medic diligent to stabilize his friend. Arcee wasn't looking either; she had a gentle hand cupped around the good side of Cliffjumper's face.

While the others soon looked to Cliffjumper, concerned for their friend, Optimus was the only one who continued to look up at her hovering form. Nightstalker tried to speak, but fear pinched her vocal processors tight. It wasn't until the medic ordered that Cliffjumper be moved to his medical berth immediately, the ground bridge opening up, that Nightstalker found her voice.

"O-Optimus P-Prime," she stuttered out, barely loud enough for her voice to carry. She trusted him to amplify his audio receptors to hear her since she could barely manage to squeak around her terror. "I-I-I s-surrender. I—I—I—surrender."

"Optimus," she heard one of them say irritably, "we can't possibly take her in. She's a Decepticon!"

Optimus only waved a soothing hand to the upheaval within his troops. "Bulkhead, Ratchet, see to Cliffjumper," he ordered them. Both jumped to help, and Arcee glared venomously up at the hiding Nightstalker before following the others through the ground bridge. The yellow one hesitated.

Optimus nodded calmly. "Come down from there. We will not hurt you."

Nightstalker trembled, wings twitching nervously as she looked down at them both. "I-I'm inclined to think differently," she stuttered, peering around the edge of the rock.

He shook his head patiently. "We will not hurt you. Come down. It will make our discussion that much easier."

Nightstalker quaked in her small heels, but obligingly transformed and coasted down towards them. She transformed again, backing away quickly into the side of the mountain. The ground bridge still whirred, wide open. Her wings twitched.

Dear Primus they were both bigger than her, Optimus well over twice her size . . . It was utterly terrifying! However, despite his daunting size that had Nightstalker cowering into the rock face, his voice was gentle. "What are the motives behind your surrender?"

What were they, indeed? Nightstalker tried to rapidly think through her motives, but she was coming up with a blank again. She gave a trembling gesture towards the bridge. "C-Cliffjumper," she stammered. She didn't know why, or beyond that, and she prayed he didn't ask. "And—And I've got nothing left with Decepticons." In fact, she had never had anything with the Decepticons. Just Fli-Ni. And he had been taken by an unknown Autobot. All she could remember was the look of that broad back, and she had never seen it again after that day, no matter how many Autobots she had seen.

Optimus hesitated. She knew he was digging for information so he would know it wasn't a fluke, so she couldn't fault him for that . . . "What are your motives for Cliffjumper?" he finally asked.

Nightstalker drew a blank. What indeed, had been her motives for Cliffjumper? Was it just his nice voice she liked so much? It wasn't anything as shallow as that. She wasn't even on friendly terms with him, and it had just been small talk to fill in the gaps between tortures. Primus knew she couldn't even THINK to confess that she had been his torturer and not Arachnid . . . She held no feelings towards Cliffjumper, so she drew a blank there too. He was a good mech of his own right, but not even that would move her. It wasn't those guileless optics, it wasn't his good looks, it wasn't his subtle words, it wasn't pity.

So what WAS it?

"I—I don't know," Nightstalker muttered, quaking on the side of the wall. What to say? She honestly didn't know. She had just done it. "I—I don't know," she stuttered again, stalling for time. He wasn't really anything special. He really didn't differ from other Autobot prisoners she had tortured. She only real differences she could find were superficial, like only futilely clenching his fist to stop her from hurting his hand, or speaking rather respectively to her as if she were a normal person, and such eccentric things like that. He was nothing special. He was just . . .

Cliffjumper.

Nightstalker looked up, suddenly knowing exactly what it was. It was unusual, and shallow, and perhaps a bit stupid, but it was what it was, for all it was worth.

Nightstalker blinked her orange optics at Optimus. "He gave me his name," she said quietly, for once not stuttering in their presence.

Optimus nodded, and for some reason, he didn't prod more but took her word as it was. "Bumblebee," he said to the smaller mech that waited, "collect our detainee."

Nightstalker jumped and shrank away from the young mech that came her way. The young bot's blue optics dilated curiously at her reaction. He, like his leader, sensed her unyielding terror, and with a few boops and beeps, expressed that he wasn't going to hurt her, Decepticon or not. Nightstalker cowered more, but Bumblebee took her gently, aware of her multiple wounds that would irritate as he pulled her wrists behind her, hands holding her steady.

He led her through the ground bridge, and Nightstalker found herself entering a quaint missile silo that served as their base. She shrank when the big green one and Arcee pointed their guns at her as Bumblebee escorted her past, and she had one last glance of Cliffjumper on the medical berth.

She couldn't suppress a shiver. He looked like he was on the brink of death, which wouldn't be far from it.

Nightstalker felt the distrustful eyes of the Autobots follow her until Bumblebee had wheeled her into some darker hallways. The place was lit uncannily bright, even by Cybertronian standards, but Nightstalker couldn't find it within herself to question it. After taking her some ways deep into the hideout, Bumblebee took her inside a room. It was empty, and he hesitated uncertainly.

*Sorry* he beeped at her. *Forgot the stasis cuffs*

He turned her away again, taking her back down the hallways to another door. Rummaging in the closet he brought out stasis cuffs and cuffed her hands. He hesitated as he looked down at the other pair.

He gave a sighing whir. *Protocol says hands and feet* he informed her. Nightstalker didn't say anything, just tried not to think too hard about what could lay in store for her once they figured out she had been the torturer.

Bumblebee let her walk herself back. His hand carried the stasis cuffs and the other hand held her by the back of her neck. It was a gentle hand though, not cruel, but it still didn't ease the panicked flutter of Nightstalker's spark. When they made it back to the room she was to stay in, bare and dark, Nightstalker sat down as he cuffed her feet so she couldn't run. After a moment, another light went off in his head.

*Wait . . . you're a flier* She had been wondering when he was going to get to that part. His absent-mindedness sent a pang through her spark—the trait reminded her too much of Fli-Ni. His eyes dilated uncertainly as he looked at her, feet bound and hands bound behind her back. *It's gonna get really uncomfortable though . . . But Ratchet would kill me* He hesitated again, but obviously his fear of a reprimand from Ratchet won over hospitality to a Decepticon. *I'll be right back*

Nightstalker just blankly watched him leave, fighting the mounting dread inside her chest. They would kill her for sure. They would want her energon when they learned she had done that to their precious Cliffjumper. She flexed her wings much as she waited for Bumblebee to come back, knowing it would be the last time she got to for a long time. The thought was stifling.

Bumblebee came back and cuffed her wings too, grounding her, and he hesitated once before leaving. He decided to leave without saying anything. Suddenly, the walls seemed to close in tight, and the shadows deepened.

Nightstalker shivered. _I'm sorry, Cliffjumper. I tried. No, I succeeded. But I have a feeling that's the last you ever saw of me._

They were morbid thoughts, but it was different when you were the one powerless with stasis cuffs cutting off your means of escape; no hands to maneuver with; no feet to run with; no wings to fly free with.

_I'm sorry, Cliffjumper. Though you'll never forgive me . . . If you can't pull through and live for me, then live for Arcee since you guys care for each other. And I . . . I will face my fate._

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Another chapter! :D**

**So a little bit more of Nightstalker's character revealed, as well as the fact that she used to be Megatron's frag buddy? Whoa!**

**Also, Bumblebee, you are too adorably cute to be real ^^**


	7. Decepticon Prisoner

Ratchet's labored work over Cliffjumper hadn't ceased once since the broken mech had made it in. The extensive wounding had everyone in jitters—the massing tears through his body; the gaping hole in his right shoulder and the scraps on his left; his revoltingly mutilated hand; his repulsively mauled face; his sickeningly ripped up leg plating on the right and the un-curable wounds that Arachnid's venom had left festering inside him.

When Ratchet had found traces of hardened lava he didn't believe it. No matter how much he didn't want to believe it, he had to force himself to because he kept finding traces—scratches over his body that came directly from lava, and the solidified chunks he had to force free from Cliffjumper's arm and face.

They had to contact Fowler for shipments of parts and Ratchet eventually admitted that there were some places he couldn't save. Cliffjumper's hand was lost—there would be no salvaging it, and he would try to get to work on creating another immediately. He could pull together Cliffjumper's face as well as he could, but even that might not heal straight.

The wound of Arachnid's venom on his left knee worried him. Ratchet knew he had to replace the entire leg. All the plating on his body was going to have to be removed and replaced because the scratches from Arachnid's venom and lava had weakened the metal too much to protect him.

Cliffjumper was locked in stasis, a trauma that he would not awaken from for a long time. Ratchet worked never-ceasing to stabilize his critical condition, taking help where he could—but for the most part, Cliffjumper was in Ratchet's hands. Jack, Raf, and Miko had all wanted to see Cliffjumper since they knew the Autobots cared for him so much, but they were forbidden from the medical area. Not only because Ratchet claimed they would distract him, but none of the Autobots wanted them to see the grisly aftermath of Cliffjumper's torture.

Worse still, Megatron had not ceased his diabolical work. As the days slowly passed in which Ratchet didn't even take a measly stasis nap, Optimus and the team had time to escape the explosion of the mines Cliffjumper had been supposed to been taken too. They learned what dark energon was when it brought a piece of Ratchet's equipment to life. The kids managed to follow Bulkhead when he tried to help the captured Fowler, and they halted one of Megatron's rising zombie armies.

These events passed, but Ratchet remained, toiling without pause on Cliffjumper, slowly managing to at least stabilize the mech if not fix every part of him. He considered the leg his biggest option, and he began to piece the new one together first, the huge job taxing his patience. He salvaged as much bio mechanics from Cliffjumper's original leg as possible, but it was a difficult feat when most bio mechanics had been damaged beyond repair by Arachnid's venom.

All the while, Nightstalker remained in the back.

Nothing happened on her end. She had been leaking from her crash, but Bumblebee came back with the welder and fixed her up some. He was the only one she saw. He brought her energon cubes for recharge, checked her systems to be sure her homing signal and weapons were offline, but nothing more. It took Nightstalker long enough to stop flinching when the bot came in, but she eventually sensed that no harm would come to her of Bumblebee's making. However, even Bumblebee gave up talking to her after a while when she refused to speak.

The only thing that made her solitude nearly unbearable was the voices.

She had tried to close her communications towards the Decepticons, but Soundwave must have managed to hack her channel and keep it open. Starscream openly threatened her with all kinds of gruesome things, some which rattled her and some that weren't nearly imaginative enough to shake her. The Vehicons would periodically taunt her as weak.

She didn't know what the Autobots were going to do with her, and that probably scared her even more. Nightstalker waited, locked up in stasis cuffs, bracing herself for the imminent end of death.

* * *

><p><em> The whips lashed. Energon splashed, staining his vision sickening blue. The hoarse, agonized screams didn't stop, and it was terrifying to know that they were his own. Her hands touched him, and slow-burning fires sliced through his metal like old cheese. His voice splintered again, jerking, thrashing, writhing without escape.<em>

_ "Mercy! Mercy!"_

_ Her diabolical laugh echoed in his audio receptors, cruel, unfeeling. She ripped and tore at his body, burning, the stench rising, coils of smoke overwhelming his vision. A cackle and a furious demand and more screaming and more energon spattering. Darkness. Alone. Unheard howls and shrieks, desperate, pleading, ignored. Blazing orange optics viewing him as nothing. The touch of the dead._

_ Burning—brutal—slashing and tearing—crippling terror rising and crashing over him. Hands picked and pulled apart, metal shaved away with the highly sensitive pain receptors on, broken, wires yanked free and glistening in sight—An upheaval of the stomach and more energon. No escape—captivity of eternal dole, endless sorrowing and lamenting of life—_

_ To beg a master for death. Howling, shrieking, weeping, gnashing of teeth and crippling terror. "Mercy! Mercy!" An infinite plea to mock. Trepidation pressing in, claws penetrating through the weak neck, symbolizing of fear choking his life away, suffocating as bile rose and clotted his throat._

_ Buried beneath—!_

_ Buried beneath—!_

_ Dying, screaming, begging, empty supplications for those without ears. "Mercy! Mercy!" Cold orange optics of lava, glaring with vicious malice, dread closing in, unpitying, unforgiving, and cruel to the end. Unearthly screams from the incarnation of suffering, weeping sobs of the despondent, despair sweeping him away as chaff, forlorn hopes burned to ash and blown away by the wind. Kept alive to suffer. Kept alive to die!_

_ "Mercy!"_

* * *

><p>"Mercy!"<p>

Cliffjumper jolted back to the land of the living, hearing himself screaming but unable to register how to stop it. The bright lights blinded him, and a shape was moving, hands touching his body—

His screams renewed instantly, terrified of someone touching him—it was her! She was here to break him down like slag! He quaked on his hard bed, twisting away from the clawed hands reaching out to him.

"Cliff! Cliff! Calm down!"

A piercing wail left his lips when she touched him again, stroking his cheeks with mocking sympathy before she took the coup to make his anguish heighten. What would it be this time? His other hand? His spark chamber? His interface paneling!

"Mercy! Mercy!" he half-wept half-shrieked. His spark slammed inside his aching body, and he writhed beneath the touch that tried to get him to focus for the upcoming punishment. "Mercy, please, I beg of you! Please, mercy, I'll do anything—!"

"Cliff!" her voice persisted. Cliffjumper snapped his optics shut, trembling in apprehension of seeing those vindictive orange optics glowing in spite and malicious intent. A soft hand was patting his cheek. "Cliff, it's okay! Calm down, it's me, Arcee! Remember? We rescued you, you're safe now. Shh, calm down . . ."

Trembling, mind latching to the different sounding voice and the mention of Arcee, Cliffjumper forced his eyes to crack back open. True enough, he saw blue optics, and another wail escaped his lips, laden with respite from his sufferings.

He couldn't even focus his mind to make enough sense. "Please, m-mercy . . ."

Her compassionate voice filled his ears. "Shh, it's all right, Cliff, I'm here. I won't let her hurt you. I'm here, it's going to be okay . . ."

He was weeping now, hands groping through the blinding lights for her. "Arcee—Arcee—please! The pain—I can't do it anymore! I can't! I can't! Please—make it stop!"

He felt her comforting lips touching over his face, careful of wounded spots. It was like a brush of a butterfly's wings against him. "Shh," she crooned softly, hands stroking his cheeks. "It's all right. She can't hurt you anymore. You're safe at the base. Ratchet's fixing you."

She can't hurt him—a choked sound tore past Cliffjumper's vocals, half stocked up with terror when he couldn't find his hand to touch Arcee back. "You don't know!" he howled at her, twitching in revolution on the medical berth. "You can't understand!" He shook his head wildly, still groping through the white wall of light to find her. He couldn't.

"Cliff, I understand perfectly," he heard her passionate whisper in his audio receptor. He shook his head—no, she had endured Arachnid, not—not—"I'm here for you. I—"

"You DON'T understand!" he wailed helplessly. "She's merciless! Worse than Megatron! She's cruel beyond reasoning—those—those orange optics—!" Cliffjumper's rising voice broke on an agonized moan. He writhed on the medical berth.

Arcee froze then, hands stilling their comforting strokes to his face. "O-Orange optics?"

"Like hells fire!" he wept freely, pressing his helm up towards Arcee. He needed her touch, Primus KNEW he needed her touch—! His hysterical panic was only dampened slightly by her kissing the top of his helm. "Please—Arcee—Arcee—Arcee, please—"

"Shh . . ." She kissed his trembling lips lightly, pressing her face into his when he leaned forward again. "I'm here. I won't ever leave you . . ."

"Please—Arcee . . . Mercy . . . Arcee . . ."

Arcee watched him drop back into a stasis that was sure to be wrought with the demonic shadows of the torture chamber. Her spark swelled with painful compassion while another side raised its ugly head.

Her hands clenched into fists. Her back stouts hinged up. Arcee ground her jaw as she turned in fury on Optimus, ignoring all those in the room. She forgot Ratchet, she forgot Bumblebee and Bulkhead, she even forgot the innocent ears of the humans out of sight. There was no one but her, Cliffjumper, Optimus—

And that devil in the back.

"It was her!" Arcee exploded at him. The blades on her arms came unsheathed without her noticing as she gestured angrily to the back. "SHE was his fragging torturer, not—not Arachnid! That little glitch we've got locked up in the back closet is the embodiment of his nightmares!"

Optimus's optics dilated at her irate outburst, and he conceded, "Arcee, I did not know at the time that she was his torturer—"

Arcee's eyes widened at the look on his face. "But you had a feeling!" she shouted right back, shaking she was trying so hard to refrain from attack, from losing it right then and there. When Optimus hesitated to respond, Arcee let out a mocking laugh. "Yes, you had a thought that she was his torturer, and yet you didn't say a slagging thing!"

His optics flashed. "So I did," he said with that warning of steel beneath his voice. "How else could he have been assisted from the dungeons—"

"I don't care what the frag she's done to help!" Arcee bellowed at Optimus. "You see what she's done to him! He's traumatized, Optimus, and you're standing here telling me that we're going to keep that fragging spawn of Unicron—"

"Arcee!" he barked back, seeing now that he wasn't getting through to her. "Stand down!"

"Stand the frag down?" she yelled back, slashing a hand through the air. "I'll kill her, Optimus!"

When she took the first two steps, a steely hand clamped down on her arm. "Arcee, I will not permit you to do this," Optimus stated severely. "Killing for revenge is NOT the Autobot way, and I will not let you fall as low as Decepticons have."

"Revenge?" Arcee hissed back. She threw an arm to Cliffjumper locked in stasis on Ratchet's medical berth. "I call it justice."

"And you cannot justify her death as justice when your optics carry nothing but hate." Arcee flushed bright with energon, infuriation bubbling behind her complexion. Optimus gave a strict nod, optics waning a little from their stress of before. "I will speak to her myself," he stated, wanting to demand answers himself.

Arcee jerked her arm from his grip, silently seething at him as she returned to Cliffjumper's side. Optimus cast his eyes over his worried soldiers, Bumblebee farthest back as he kept the humans at bay. His optics tightened a little. Those kids should not have heard Cliffjumper's delusional screams.

Optimus moved down the hallway, steps a bit heavier in his agitation. Cliffjumper's extensive wounding enraged him as well. Cliffjumper claimed her merciless and cruel—and gauging by the horrific sight of his wounds, Optimus believed it. Yet, he was conflicted with this thought. He had seen her cowering before them even as she stuttered a believable confession of surrender. She feared them.

This fact was only reinforced in Optimus's mind when he opened the door to her cell. The black femme Decepticon seeker cringed into her corner, tiny compared to the rest as she quite clearly expressed her terror of him. It was hard to wrap his central processor around the thought that this panicky femme had been malicious enough to do what she had done to Cliffjumper.

Then, it suddenly occurred to Optimus why she was so afraid. She was terrified because she knew she was Cliffjumper's torturer, and she expected death the minute they learned what she had done.

* * *

><p>His optics had been so cold when he stepped in that Nightstalker knew it was the end. She cringed into her corner, trying to press herself smaller than a speck because she was so guilty. She ducked her head into her knees, unable to look up at the Autobot leader.<p>

He paused in the doorway, and Nightstalker risked a chancy look at him. His blue optics weren't as livid as before, though traces of that rage remained. He had collected himself for the interrogation.

"You—" Nightstalker jumped and shrank at the sound of his voice. He started again. "You are Cliffjumper's torturer. Why did you not speak of this before?"

Nightstalker's lips trembled. She tried to speak, but nothing could squeeze past her tight throat. Her internal temperatures rose with her fear.

"I asked a question. I expect an answer."

His words weren't cruel, but they scared the pit out of Nightstalker. Her dread rose to suddenly overflowing, and she shrank as much as she could into her corner, stasis cuffs holding her immobile and exposed. Her gasps escalated to audible and rapid, and she rocked, wings twitching in panic against the stasis cuffs that held her prisoner. Dear Primus, lubricants were leaking from her eyes as she quaked beneath the gaze of Optimus Prime, neither compassionate nor hateful, but deadpanned.

"An answer," he repeated, making Nightstalker flinch violently.

Her mouth moved without sounds for the longest time. The words stuck there, pathetic and worthless, locked in her vocal processor by extreme trepidation. Optimus frowned at her silence, and before he could demand again, a name burst from Nightstalker's lips.

"Cliffjumper!"

She was aware she was crying with fright now, barely able to get the words to function properly. "Is he—Is he—he—he okay? C-C-Cliffjumper—" Nightstalker gasped and swallowed, trembling violently as she looked up at Optimus for his answer.

His gaze was shielded, unable to be understood. "That question remains to be answered," he finally said. "Why did you not speak of your functioning?"

Nightstalker cowered in her corner, feeling as if his massive size was impeding on the entire room. "I—I thought—I thought—" Nightstalker choked briefly on her terror again, unable to force the words through her constricting vocal processor. "I thought you would kill me!" Nightstalker dropped her face into her knees with a sob, shaking her head. "Primus knows I deserve it!" she cried, unable to stop it now that she had started.

Maybe it was a good thing they would kill her. Nightstalker shuddered in revolution of spending an eternity in the pit, but she knew she deserved nothing less. What kind of Cybertronian went around with torture as their function? It was sickening and degrading. Only those corrupt in the spark without compassion could take that vile job, and she had done it. She had done it for Fli-Ni, her brother—that Autobot that had killed him. But was that truly enough to make her despicable on all levels? Nightstalker wept, unable to choose what she really was and why she had really done these things.

The silence seemed to stretch for a long time, and Nightstalker didn't know if it was just because Optimus was watching her that made it seem so long. "What is your designation?" he finally asked.

Nightstalker shook her head, unable to speak around her guilt anymore.

"You have no designation?"

She shook her head again. Cliffjumper's screams echoed in her mind, scarring her and haunting her. A choking sob gritted between clamped teeth.

"Please, tell me what your name is. You will come to no harm."

How could he possibly promise her that? Arcee was sure to murder her for what she had fraternized with—her arch nemesis, and the one who had tortured her. And who could possibly forgive the one who had tortured the mech she cared about within an inch of his life?

There was a long pause. "You regret your actions?" he asked quietly.

Unable to scream out exactly how much she regretted it, Nightstalker nodded furiously into her knees.

There was a tired vent, and his heavy voice spoke again. "Calm yourself," he said quietly. "Cliffjumper yet lives. And I will not allow my troops to harm you, no matter what you may have done, because you seek repentance."

Nightstalker heard the door shut behind him, and she wept freely once out of his presence.

He was wrong. There was no atoning for her sins, no forgiveness for what she had done. She was beyond redemption, and she wept in misery for what she had allowed herself to become.

Fli-Ni would despise her.


	8. Confrontation

The nightmares continued to plague Cliffjumper. He faded in and out of consciousness, alternately screaming in terror or weeping for mercy. Arcee was always there to soothe away his fears with sweet words and a kiss of an angel, and if Arcee happened to be absent when he awoke, he could lean upon his friends for comfort. He still had yet to realize that there were humans residing with them in the missile silo, but the Autobots promised the impatient kids that they could meet Cliffjumper when he was of sounder mind.

Bumblebee continued to give Nightstalker her doses of energon. She had alternate reactions to him as well. Sometimes she would collapse into hysterics because she feared him so much, but those soon ended when she realized the yellow scout was not going to hurt her. She would try to refuse the energon believing that she was not fit to live, and she would do nothing but stare listlessly at the wall. And still the taunting and threatening Decepticon voices would not leave her alone, never ceasing to fill her with dread and make her thrash silently on the ground as she tried to stifle her screams.

Bumblebee sensed her terror and despair, and he always tried to support her with cute beeps and woops, the whirls expressing compassionate words, but they fell to ears who ignored them. He eventually gave up on conversation again.

The Autobots were forced to mobilize though. Megatron's tyranny would not cease, and they used the ground bridge to transport themselves to Megatron's space bridge. Halting his dark energon from jettisoning through their space bridge and into Cybertron had been impossible, but they reversed the powerful currents of their space bridge. The Decepticon space bridge imploded on itself, and Megatron perished in the blast, reaching out with insane hands towards his army of zombies.

Ratchet was relieved to find that none of the Autobots were severely injured. They had all sustained little damage so they could repair each other and leave Ratchet to piece together Cliffjumper's new leg in peace.

It was the day after Ground Zero that Cliffjumper regained consciousness without horrendous cries. He blinked his optics up at the familiar ceiling, staring a bit uncomprehendingly that he was back in the Autobot base. It was surreal, and a hollow comfort, but one he clung to with his life.

"Cliff?"

Bulkhead's astonished voice filled Cliffjumper's audio receptors. Cliffjumper blinked, trying to reason that the danger was past. His torture was over.

"What? He's awake!"

An excited feminine voice echoed Bulkhead, and Cliffjumper heard the patter of tiny footsteps across the floor.

"M-Miko—wait!"

Cliffjumper turned his head, gazing down on a tiny form. Her black and pink highlighted hair caught his attention first, tied low in a sloppy ponytail with two puffs of hair as pigtails. She had a designated punk look, purple and navy striped leggings covered with tiny shorts and knee-high boots also with purple laces running down the front. Her undergarment shirt was pink and covered with an off-purple tank that had a curiously green alien-type pixel on the chest. Cliffjumper blinked, immediately assessing her deep purple nails, the pink hair dropping in her face, and the strange baby blue alien keychain. Her yellow belt seemed out of place, but so did her scrunched up face that was puckered in his direction. _She_ was misplaced—she was a human.

"Hey," she said, watching him closely.

Cliffjumper blinked once at her, unsure of what to make of her. It took a minute to loosen his tight vocal processor—he was afraid if he opened it, he would only hear his own screams again. "Hey yourself," he squeezed out of his vocals, impressed at her lack of fear towards them. Then, he had to scoff to himself—he was currently incapacitated on a medical berth, and that had to be apparent by even human standards.

However, she gave a huge grin, brown eyes crackling to life with spontaneous activity. "My name is Miko! I'm Bulkhead's human he's gotta protect. And you're Cliffjumper!"

His lips twitched with the effort to smile at her, but Cliffjumper couldn't quite manage, still a bit disoriented and bewildered by the whole situation. "I see I don't need an introduction," he stated with vague traces of his old self. He heard Autobot footsteps clomping towards him.

Still, there was something about Miko that he liked. He didn't know if it was just her eccentric look or the fact that she had completely ignored Bulkhead when he asked her to stop, but Cliffjumper got a positive vibe from the tiny human, roughly in her middle teens. "I bet you've got Bulkhead on a tight leash."

Miko grinned then, crossing her arms. "You bet I do! That old lug wouldn't know what to do without me around!"

This time, the smile tugged itself into small existence, especially when Bulkhead didn't even grumble at her claim. Cliffjumper was surprised when two more humans scrambled into his line of sight.

He noticed the taller boy first, not because he was bigger but because of subtle bearings. He dressed plain but clean, old jeans and simple black converse, gray long sleeves under a darker grey t-shirt. His black hair was a bit mussy, but styled forward and dipped into his eyes. Cliffjumper stared at him, taking in the sight of extremely dark green eyes that were strict and smart. For some reason, he got a tug deep in his gut that he reminded him of someone from long ago . . . Cliffjumper tried to wrack his central processor for who he was thinking of, but it wasn't coming back that instant. He forgot about it when the teen spoke.

"My name is Jack," he said, watching him closely. "Arcee's my guardian." Cliffjumper kept away a frown when he realized that they were all walking on eggshells around him, like he was going to shatter at a single misplaced movement.

"Well met," Cliffjumper said instead, optics looking curiously at him with a familiar twinkle trying to come back. "You must be something if Arcee's sticking around with you."

Jack grinned, shrugging a little. "I think an order from Optimus can change her mind."

Cliffjumper just shook his head a little. "Nah, if she didn't like you, not even Optimus could stop her from dumping you off. Chin up, kid, she likes you."

Jack just self-consciously grabbed an arm, giving another helpless shrug.

The younger boy pushed up his glasses on his nose. "Hi, Cliffjumper. My name's Raf."

Cliffjumper turned his blue optics to the smaller human, immediately deeming that the nose pieces on his rusty-red glasses needed to be tightened to stop them from slipping down his face. The boy was much shorter than the others, wearing denim jeans and gray sneakers with orange streaks highlighting them. His button up under-shirt was a sort of faded light tan, and he wore an orange sweater over it. He was small, but his brown eyes were intelligent beyond his years. Cliffjumper decided he liked him too.

"Hey, little fella," he said, a real, albeit small, smile finally making its way to his face. "How you holding up as the littlest here? You're not letting anyone push you around, are you?"

Raf gave a small smile, and he gave a small shrug. "No, it's fine, really. Everyone's really nice." He looked up suddenly with wide eyes of innocence. "I hope you get better really soon."

A pang shot through his spark. The innocence of a child was exposed before him, the simple wish for compassion even though they were strangers. Cliffjumper shook his head and saw Arcee hovering nearby, as everyone congregated around to see him. "I'll be just fine. Ratchet's a great medic." Turning his head the other way, he smiled at Arcee, glad to see her. He started to sit up. "Hey Arcee. You're looking—"

Cliffjumper's grip staggered—he didn't have a grip. His weight suddenly shifted forward and to his left, and he caught himself before he completely collapsed on the floor. Horrifying realization hit hard when he stared at the vacant spot where his left hand should be.

The pain rushed back. His optics dilated inadvertently remembering her blade cutting his metal open like an experiment as those orange optics looked on hollowly while he screamed and begged for mercy. Her clawed fingers digging into his body for the nerve endings of wiring—

Cliffjumper broke away from the disturbing line of thought, jerking his gaze away from his hand only to collide with his legs.

...

His leg.

A weight crashed down in Cliffjumper's mind as he suddenly realized exactly how handicapped he was. His breathing turned shallow, and he felt his one hand gripping the medical berth so tightly it was crunching beneath his terror. His optics widened with horror, little gasps starting to vent rapidly from his systems, and he felt Arcee's soft touch that he flinched away from.

"Cliff . . ."

No. Her touch was not HER touch. Blue optics were NOT orange optics. Cliffjumper seized Arcee with a sudden kiss, right and only hand grabbing her and pulling her close. He heard an audible sound of disgust which he determined from Miko.

Arcee broke the kiss with a glance to the kids, energon flushing high in her cheeks. "Cliff—"

"No," he said before she could mention the kids or anyone else in the room. Taking her behind the helm, he held her face to his, foreheads resting against each other. "Stay. This is . . ." He took a deep breath, steadying himself of his loss of limbs. "Soothing."

His word choice affected her greatly. Cliffjumper heard her breath catch a little and a sweet, returning kiss touch his lips briefly. Her comforting hands came around him, returning his awkward hug because he didn't want his handless arm to touch her.

After several long minutes, Cliffjumper opened his optics and looked up to Optimus who waited patiently for a word. "Optimus, can I ask you a question?"

The Autobot leader seemed surprised. "Of course, old friend," he said graciously, as humble as he would always be.

Cliffjumper dropped his head and swallowed. It was just a feeling, but . . . he wanted the certain answer just to be sure. Even if he felt like she was right there . . .

"Optimus, is she here? In the base?"

The slight dimming of Optimus's optics in worry was all Cliffjumper needed. More clearly, he felt Arcee stiffen like a tree in his arms, and it only reinforced the fact. Cliffjumper dropped his arms from around her, contemplating this within himself.

It was terrifying. That meant his very own torturer was locked up in one of the back rooms, just . . . there. While it gave Cliffjumper some twisted sense of pleasure to know it was now her in stasis cuffs and helpless, he couldn't find the cruelty in him to condemn her for what she had done to him. After all, she HAD saved his life no matter how detrimental it had been to her own safety. She had made it very clear that she hadn't been going to let anything happen to him.

Cliffjumper heaved a sigh through his vents, bending over and resting his head on his hand. Now that he noticed, he wasn't even red anymore—nearly every piece of available armor had been stripped down and replaced with new parts gleaming a murky grey. Left hand and right leg completely missing—his spark jumped in impending dread at the thought, and her deathly orange eyes glazed in his mind. Her claws left burning trails of lava over his vision. He trembled before taking a shuddering breath, struggling to contain his fear.

Even his face pulsed in pain, but one thing Cliffjumper was NOT was a coward. This was his mountain of fear to climb and conquer, and he had to conquer her alone, without the help of friends. Even though terror squeezed his spark tight, he forced the words past his throat.

"If you would accompany me, Optimus . . . so I'm not alone . . . I would like to speak with her."

Nightstalker officially decided that Starscream really got under her metal.

He taunted her. And he didn't just tease her, he cruelly harassed her until she thought she was losing her mind.

She wanted freedom. She hated the numerous days she had spent forgotten in the back room, energon each day by Bumblebee but nothing more. She was left to rot in the back, forgotten as they clearly did more important things than to think about the deteriorating mind of their prisoner without any sort of company except the vexing voices in her head that she couldn't block to save her life. She blamed it on Soundwave, because he was the only one she could think of that could jam her frequencies from afar.

It was freedom she sought most. Nightstalker regretted the day she ever surrendered to the Autobots instead of fleeing when she had the chance. Her wings strained against the stasis cuffs that held her bound tight. She _needed_ to fly again. She longed so much for her freedom that it drove her mad inside her dim and shrinking prison walls.

That was where Starscream came in.

The infuriating slagger had the gall to mock her freely, telling her of beautiful days, pleasantly warm, and clear azure skies for his taking. He vividly narrated his lengthy flights in the air, riding the winds of blustery days and the days where the wind blew sparsely to which he performed the slickest tricks and barrel rolls. The feel of the breeze caressing his body, the warmth of the sun on his metal, and the pleasure of dashing through the air at high speeds—

It was enough to make Nightstalker shriek and thrash on the floor, slam her shoulder against the locked door, and howl pleas to be set free.

She was a grounded seeker. A dirt kisser. It set her soul to flames and burned her alive from the inside out. Nightstalker was stifled within the perimeter of the room, and her sanity slowly tipped day by day the longer she was within it.

Today, however, she felt a rare spurt of determination. Her shoulders ached from her hands locked together behind her back in stasis cuffs, and she was determined to get into a more comfortable position. Wiggling and struggling, Nightstalker twisted her body so she could get her hands in the front. Her spark sang briefly when she managed to get her hands below her aft, but then she found herself in an awkward position. Half on her back and with her legs in the air, her cuffed hands were stuck behind her knees.

Nightstalker huffed at herself and wiggled more, successfully falling all the way on her back. She cursed herself as she struggled to get out of the graceless position, but after a minute realized with a small pang of panic that she was stuck. Nightstalker frowned, trying harder to get her legs to squeeze between her arms, but her small heels kept catching on the bulky stasis cuffs. Nightstalker struggled some more until she heard clunky footsteps—staggered and slow.

A real panic attack hit her—no one could see her like this! Nightstalker fought to get her legs back through without success, and the steps came closer and closer until she heard the door whiz open, and she looked up.

Her alarmed eyes slammed into a pair of blue optics she hadn't seen in over a week. The one-legged bot cringed away when she looked at him, but Nightstalker cringed away from HIM as if seeing a ghost. She wiggled herself tightly into her corner farthest from the door before remembering her current bondage.

The energon almost flushed to her face as she realized her awkward position was almost provocative because her aft was clearly visible with her legs hoisted from her hands behind her knees. Nightstalker twisted, struggling to get her hands back to behind her back, uncomfortable or not. Helplessly realizing she couldn't get back there either, Nightstalker felt exposed to both mech's eyes that could freely devour the sight of her thighs and aft.

She cowered in her corner. Would they rape her? She was sure if she had been caught like this with Decepticons they would have done it by now . . .

Instead, she heard a familiar someone take a quavering deep breath and say, "Optimus, can you help her get in a more presentable position?"

Nightstalker watched with widened, horrified eyes as Cliffjumper took a steadying hold on the wall to balance on his one leg. The giant Optimus Prime approached her, and Nightstalker heard a terrified squeak catch in the back of her vocal processor. She pressed uselessly against the unyielding corner.

Optimus crouched in front of her, gentle optics touching her panicked ones. "Do not fear," he said quietly. Nightstalker flinched visibly when his hand took a firm yet modest grip on her aft and the other grasped her wrist cuffs. With a simple and solid thrust, Optimus had managed to force her hands back behind her back.

Any words of possible thanks choked the back of Nightstalker's throat. She immediately backed farther into her corner, hitching her legs up to protect herself and squeezed her eyes shut. Optimus's brow puckered as he backed away. He reached to take Cliffjumper's weight for him, but the smaller mech shook his head, focusing his eyes on Nightstalker.

He was fearful of her, but he stood awkwardly on his own without the strength of his leader. After a long moment, he finally said to her, "Hey."

Nightstalker tried not to flinch, but she hid behind her knees, orange optics peeping up scared at him. A nervous but true smile teased the edges of his lips.

"The name's Cliffjumper," he said to her, as if she didn't know. Her spark stilled when she heard his words exactly the same as long before. "I don't think we ever properly introduced ourselves."

Nightstalker's lips trembled uncertainly as she looked at him. He was discolored from that red she hated to a disgusting looking grey, so that meant nearly all of his plating had to be removed and replaced. He was missing his left hand, and he was missing his right leg. She wondered belatedly if the medic could possibly fix that. His face was repaired well though a jagged line ran down the helm line on the left; he still only had one horn.

Finally, since he awaited an answer, Nightstalker rasped, "Y-You want to know my name? Y-Your t-torturer?"

He flinched at the reminder, and his one hand gripped the doorjamb tighter. "Y-Yeah," he stuttered before he forced his blue optics to flick upward. "I'd like to know the name of the one who saved my life."

Nightstalker recoiled in burning guilt. "The one who almost stole your life . . ." she whispered as if his screams had ripped from her throat leaving her hoarse and worn.

He trembled a moment in remembrance of what she had done to him before shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. In the end, you saved me no matter the danger to yourself."

Nightstalker shook her head vigorously and dropped her head into her knees, muffling her voice. "I trust you've realized you're missing a hand and a leg."

Her voice was a bit sharper than she had meant it to be, but she didn't see him quail into himself in fright at only a slight raising of her voice. "I'm trying to remember the femme I saw before you tortured me," he finally said around a tight throat. He swallowed. "You're making it difficult by trying to make me remember everything you've done to me."

"I can't forget it," she confessed, lifting her head to look at him again. Optimus stood respectively to the side, silent and faded from sight.

Cliffjumper's eyes were solid blue and probing as he looked at her. "Can I have your name?"

Nightstalker ducked her head self-consciously into her knees. She tried to wrap her arms around her legs, but only felt the stasis cuffs restraining her. "N-Nightstalker," she finally stuttered out, wondering why it was so important to him. Her wings strained desperately against her bondage.

Cliffjumper nodded though, eyes uncertain even cutting straight through her. "Can you tell me why you suddenly decided to rescue me instead of offline me?"

Nightstalker's throat bobbed tightly. "You gave me your name," she muttered, turning her face away again.

There was a stretch of uncomfortable silence. "My name?" he finally repeated. "That's it?"

Nightstalker nodded into her knees. "No more, no less . . ." She shook her head, letting her taunt shoulders slump. "You gave me an identity to go with my captive. And you kept talking to me . . ."

It was quiet for a lot longer, and Nightstalker wondered if he had given up conversation. Then, finally, she heard a weak laugh and looked up to see Cliffjumper shaking his head.

"Look at the irony of this situation," he said quietly, lifting his blue optics to look at her. "I'm the one that should be terrified of you for torturing me, and yet you're twice more petrified than I could ever be."

Nightstalker cringed, retreating tightly into a ball and ducking her face away in shame. She couldn't look at him. She didn't want him here. He was the salt rubbing on her open wounds.

"Get out," she stammered as strongly as she could, trying to keep the lump from her throat.

He was surprised at the sudden order, but went with it. "Let's go, Optimus." Nightstalker shivered to herself as she heard their footsteps recede, leaving her alone once more.

She refused to scream. The hysterical cries bubbled up and choked her throat, but Nightstalker refused to lose control again and lose herself. She trembled in the dim cell, locked up tight and regretting her entire life. She had wasted herself. Her talents. Anything she could have possibly been instead of a torturer was lost in the settling dust of her life. Fli-Ni would be ashamed, and Nightstalker was ashamed.

Cliffjumper didn't deserve what she had done to him. Different faction or not, torture was immoral, and she had let herself become corrupt by her designated job—a job she had volunteered for in the pathetic effort of empty vengeance. Her spark ached low and deep, and she felt little tears leaking out of her optics.

She rocked herself. Crying softly in the darkness, Nightstalker's spark reached blindly to the Well of the All Spark, homesick and grieving. Fli-Ni.

_ She wanted her big brother!_

Nightstalker began to sob the lost tears of a little sister.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**How many assumed Fli-Ni was older? Or younger?**

**This is slow moving now, but next chapter i'll speed it up some. I can't get my head off the arc of Orion Pax episodes and afterwards. I've got to focus on now!**

The story has changed a bit from what I originally had it. Now I"m not sure how I want it to end, it's seesawing . . . It's so juicy in my head and so yummily dark . . . Please PLEASE let me be able to pull of what I'm trying to . . .

Nightstalker's awkward position inspired by this yummy picture:

**http:**

**/dirtyformers.**

**deviantart**

**.com/**

**gallery/**

**?set=**

**33327745&**

**offset=48**

**#/d4o9n13**

**Muah-ha-ha. I bet those stasis cuffs were bigger on her since she's so tiny :D**


	9. Human Saviors

**Author's Note:**

**I've always had that idea that Cliff would never call Ratchet his name or even "Ratch" I always hear him saying "Doc" XD**

**TFP Armada was awesome! I'm officially rooting for something good to happen to Starscream. And these past episodes have so much that I can elaborate with Nightstalker on that I'm chewing my fingernails to the quick!**

**Oh, and there will be lemons later on. It's been a real long debate for me, and its a LONG way off, but I've decided there will be lemons. It's the only way it will work, I think . . .**

* * *

><p>After weeks of non-stop toiling, Ratchet finally finished Cliffjumper's new leg and attached it. Cliffjumper was eager to be on his feet after being designated to the berth for weeks, but Ratchet forced the excited mech to slow himself. Many injured biomechanics still resided in his new leg, and his full recovery would take time.<p>

Instead, headstrong as he was, Cliffjumper ignored Ratchet, jumping up to his feet. He ignored the many spikes of pain and instead squatted, turning his back to Arcee. "C'mon," he said to her. "Forgive-me-back-ride."

Her optics blinked wide. "Wh-what? No! Cliff, you heard Ratchet. He doesn't want you exerting yourself."

Cliffjumper waved a hand at her, ignoring Ratchet's choice words. "Sure thing. I won't exert myself. Girl, you weigh nothing but a feather. Now hop on."

She sputtered more, optics opening wide at him. "Cliff, what are you even asking forgiveness for?"

He gave a light shrug, eyes twinkling back at her. "For worrying you. Also, for not waiting for backup like I should have."

"But, Cliff—"

"C'mon, Arcee!" he burst, waggling his fingers to urge her forward. Reattaching his leg had done wonders for his disposition as he realized he was becoming whole again. "I'm getting back to my old self—don't quit on me now! Hop on and let's go!"

With a half-compassionate half-disgruntled look, Arcee climbed on despite Ratchet's worried buzzing. "Don't blow a spark plug, Doc," Cliffjumper said with a rather lively grin. He could only hold one side of her since he was still missing a hand, but after getting his leg back he was in high spirits. "Just get working on my hand next, I'm going to need it!" Giving a laugh, Cliffjumper began to tote Arcee away. She rested her chin on his shoulder, nuzzling his cheek tenderly.

"Just once around Doc's computers," Cliffjumper said, forcibly ignoring how he was straining his new/repaired leg. "So I don't worry that fool doctor into a stupor. You'd swear he watches over us like a mother hen."

Arcee chuckled in his audio receptor. The sound was so warming to Cliffjumper's spark his eyes almost closed in bliss. "He has to keep an eye on you, Cliff," she teased him back. "You're the worst of us."

"Ha!" Cliffjumper shook his head. "I'm offended, Arcee! I happen to think I'm very great."

Arcee scoffed in his ear. "Right. You're the one that always gets himself into trouble, you're always breaking something, you're always rushing off into battle alone, you're always stubborn—"

"Hey now, woman!" he said with mock hurt. He hoisted her up better when her butt started to slip down. "I am an injured mech in recovery!"

Arcee made an unimpressed sound to express herself. "Please," she muttered, "don't remind me. Just how much is your leg hurting you right now?"

"Not enough to put a pretty femme like yourself down," he said smartly back, not wanting to elaborate that indeed his leg felt like it was on fire. As he carried Arcee piggy-back around to the front of the base again, Cliffjumper's eyes caught the humans at their couch, video games paused at the spectacle.

Cliffjumper let Arcee down when they finished their round. "Forgiven?" he asked with big puppy dog eyes.

She scoffed, muttering, "You are so infuriating . . ."

Cliffjumper grinned, kissed the top of her helm, and sauntered over to the humans and Bumblebee. "What's this stuff?" he asked, peering at the screen. A racing game, to be sure. "Video games?"

"Yeah!" Raf said excitedly. "You want to play?"

Bumblebee beeped at him *You don't have it in you, Cliff! I can race circles around you in real life AND in a video game!*

Cliffjumper snorted at Bumblebee's cocky declaration. "Just you guys wait until I get my other hand," he sneered, forcing himself not to stutter over the words. "You'll regret it then! Now let's see some racing! Raf, be sure to beat Bumblebee good for me this time!"

Raf grinned. "Sure thing, Cliffjumper!"

Over yet another week later from speaking with Cliffjumper did Nightstalker really begin to wonder what they were going to do with her.

They couldn't just keep her locked up in the back. She was using up their precious energon resources, after all, and it was better they find a useful way to use her. Possibly offer her to Starscream for something in return? Or would they finally just kill her and be done with it? After all, most of them probably lusted for her energon to be spilled. Optimus had promised she wouldn't come to harm, and Cliffjumper seemed to not hold a grudge against her. Surprisingly . . .

Instead, Nightstalker only saw Bumblebee go through the mechanical movements of giving her energon before retreating out with hesitant glances to her. There was one day he had come in late, stuttering some apology about a science project, but since Nightstalker kept silent and showed no interest, he had quickly shut his mouth. Figuratively.

It was a couple days later that Nightstalker began to feel prickly crawly things. They were imaginary touches, like bugs in her metal or a limb falling asleep. Nightstalker shifted in her corner, bound hand, foot, and wing. That uncomfortable sensation amplified slowly especially when Bumblebee didn't come with her standard ration of energon. Not that she couldn't go without a day of energon—she had enough in her reserves—but it was unnerving. He hadn't missed a day, even when he was busy.

Her answer came over an hour later. She began to hear the deep buzz far out in the base, and her spark sputtered to a stop. Her metal hinged up, and she fought against the stasis cuffs holding her captive, but it was useless—she was stuck, and the place was infected with scraplets!

Nightstalker swallowed her screams in hopes the distant bugs wouldn't find her. That was cruel, even for Autobots! To desert the place and leave her to be devoured by the heathenish things—Nightstalker quaked in her stasis cuffs, shrinking into her corner.

The day passed slowly, and with growing horror, Nightstalker heard the scraplets getting closer. Their constant sawing through metal rang out closer and closer, and Nightstalker held perfectly still, hoping to Primus that they bypassed her.

They didn't, the first one creeping through a vent up in the ceiling. Nightstalker's orange optics widened in horror, and she didn't move in hope it would go away. It didn't, but another joined, and another, and another . . .

One looked up. Nightstalker's spark stopped. With shrieking hisses, the scraplets attacked.

Nightstalker screamed freely then, immediately trying to lift her hands to swipe them away, but they were locked behind her back in stasis cuffs! Full-fledged panic tore across Nightstalker's sensors as she realized she was completely helpless, and she screamed and writhed on the ground as more scraplets began to pour into her room.

Nightstalker worked her way quickly across the room and began to bang against the door. "Help me!" she screamed out, not knowing if anyone was even still there. The scraplets bites grew forceful and eager as they feasted on her metal, energon beginning to pour from their tiny little bites all over. Nightstalker screamed, feeling one gnawing through her sensitive elbow.

"Help! Please! Somebody, I'm still here! I need help!"

She threw herself against the door, kicking it repeatedly and thrashing in pain as more scraplets poured in through the vent, eagerly eating her alive. Nightstalker shrieked when she felt one eating a trail up her helm, serrated teeth snapping through her audio receptor.

"Help me, please!" she cried out, kicking the door and jerking. She scraped her body against the floor, trying to squish the scraplets off without much of any success. Terror choked her vocal processor. She was going to die eaten by scraplets—!

"Please, help! Help! Anyone! Help me! I'm still in here!" Nightstalker's hysterical screaming didn't help as she felt two burrowing into her neck, the bugs swarming over her, beginning to dismantle everything. "HELP! PLEASE!" Nightstalker continued to screech until she suddenly fell through the door, slamming into the ground.

A cloud of white coldness washed over her body, and even though it was painful, the scraplets caught inside it slowed their mindless feast on Nightstalker's body. She heard tiny grunts, both feminine and male, and felt small bits of metal knocking off the scraplets alive and freezing. The coldness swept over her body and the scraplets continued to tinkle off of her until Nightstalker was left on her side, gasping in terror as her scared eyes collided with three small humans.

The girl with pink and black hair was particularly fierce as she took her wrench and smashed any scraplet that tried to get back up. The smaller boy with glasses slipping off his nose looked particularly scared as he picked up a tool kit a bit too big for him. The plainly dressed blacked haired male held the offending fire extinguisher and looked at her.

"You okay?" he asked. The smaller boy moved around to her feet, inspecting the stasis cuffs.

Nightstalker couldn't respond, but she was sure he saw her wild eyes as they jumped around, hearing more scraplets deeper in the base. Since she couldn't respond around terrorized vocals, he said, "Calm down. We're going to let you out of those cuffs. The Autobots are in the front—"

Nightstalker felt the cuffs around her feet pop open, and she didn't wait for the rest of his instructions. Leaping to her feet in fright, Nightstalker took off running down the halls, only vaguely aware of where she was going. Her fear gave her strength to ignore the wounds across her body. She skidded into the room full of computers to find four Autobots nearly glitching on the floor. Jerking in shock to see them all still in the scraplet-infected base, Nightstalker staggered back steps in shock and backed into the far corner, crouching and pressing there.

The big green one was there and the red and white medical officer. Between them was Cliffjumper and Bumblebee, both nearly passed out on their backs. They were all in just as bad shape as Nightstalker was, and she suddenly realized that their lives were depending on the humans to eradicate the bugs.

Cliffjumper lifted his head, tired and pained blue optics meeting her frightened orange ones. Nightstalker's wrists and wings strained against her bonds, and she wished desperately to be out of the forsaken base and fly into the sky, free from danger, and free from captivity.

Her spark felt a little lighter seeing that he had his right leg back, but her insides still clenched in dread knowing scraplets infected the base. Had she saved him only to prolong the inevitable? Was he going to die this day, devoured by scraplets?

The big green mech lolled his head tiredly. "So if we get . . . WHEN we get the ground bridge open . . . Do we send the creepy-crawlies out, or bring our bots in?"

Nightstalker cowered in her corner even though they ignored her, but the stiffness of a certain discolored grey/red mech spoke volumes that he could feel her presence in the room.

"Optimus and Arcee will be fresh meat," the red and white bot replied. He shifted uncomfortably, energon leaking from multiple wounds across his body. It also suddenly occurred to Nightstalker that the humans had saved them all from a scraplet attack also. "If we bring them in first, the scraplets will have no reason to leave. We'll need bait."

"We're we gonna get bait?" the frustrated green mech snarled back. "The scraplets already helped themselves to everything in here!" He threw an angry hand towards Nightstalker, and she jumped, cringing back into her corner. "You want bait, Ratchet, there's your bait! Let the scraplets take her!"

Nightstalker tried to stifle her gasps a bit unsuccessfully as she quaked in her corner, but a short growl punctuated the silence. "What are you, Bulkhead, a Decepticon?" she heard Cliffjumper bark. Nightstalker peeked up from behind her hitched up knees to see him propping himself up with narrowed eyes towards the big green mech. "That's despicable, and you know it! I don't care if she's a Decepticon or not, NO Cybertronian should suffer the fate of SCRAPLETS!"

Bulkhead narrowed his optics at Cliffjumper. "Is that it? I'm pretty sure no Cybertronian deserves torture like you endured, or have you forgotten that too?"

Nightstalker's eyes widened at this confrontation. Cliffjumper cringed visibly, a tiny shiver running through his body. Instead of capitulating to Bulkhead's sharp retort, he glared back with underlying fear. "And why is everyone so set on making me remember this?" he shot back, one hand he still retained clenching tight. "I know it happened! I endured it, Bulkhead, there's no need to make me keep reliving it!"

The green one turned his face away, eyes still brewing anger towards Nightstalker, but regretful of his outburst towards his friend.

Cliffjumper scowled. "Look at you all. You're all acting just alike, condemning her when she's changed now." He gave a harsh laugh. "I was the one that endured the torture, not you! That's the irony of all this. I was the one that suffered, and yet I'm more willing to forgive her and give her a chance than the rest of you?" He scoffed but laid back, weakened again by the bout with the scraplets. "I thought we were Autobots . . ." he muttered.

Nightstalker ducked her head back into her knees. She felt . . . ASHAMED that it had to be Cliffjumper of all people that defended her. He of all people should throw her willingly to the scraplets to save their hides, yet he took up for her?_ Why?_ She wasn't anything worth saving after everything she had done . . .

*Cliffjumper's right* she heard Bumblebee chirp quietly. *We—*

The swarm came sudden and fast, bursting vents from the high ceiling and coiling in hundreds above them, circling like vultures. Nightstalker tried to scream, but only a weak squeak made it past her vocals. Cliffjumper gave a despairing moan—Bulkhead jumped violently and pressed himself into the floor with a scared cry, eyes jumping. Ratchet just looked listlessly up to the ceiling, and Nightstalker's optics caught Bumblebee's optics.

The mech was younger than her, something she had noticed right away, but now, he suddenly seemed stripped of all his years. He wasn't even a warrior—he was still just a kid in so many ways! Nightstalker stared at him, the way he trembled in fear until his metal literally tingled together in rapid succession. His blue optics dilated, tightening with suppressed fear until there was barely a glow of his eyes.

Nightstalker felt a sudden surge of protection for this small bot. It was surprising to feel, but it absolutely overwhelmed her sensors. This was a feeling that had been reserved for only Fli-Ni—but why Bumblebee? The answer sang its way into her spark, howling in every vibe of her being.

This was her sisterly protection for Fli-Ni.

She couldn't debate why she suddenly felt this way about him, but she had a feeling it was because his scared blue optics held the same fear she had seen in Fli-Ni's optics just before that explosion had went off.

She wasn't about to let the same fate of death drag away this young mech.

"Ratchet!" Nightstalker jerked at the boy's shout as the three humans came dashing back in full speed. "All systems go!"

"Fire it up!" the girl yelled out after him, giving an excited fist-pump.

With a heavy groan, Ratchet forced himself to his feet. "Ground bridge . . . activated!" He pushed against the lever with the last of his strength, collapsing in a heap on the floor.

Nightstalker's spark jumped up and lodged in her throat. Jerking her gaze to the right where the ground bridge blasted on full force, Nightstalker realized that it was where they were trying to send the scraplets through. Looking up with mounting horror, Nightstalker watched the scraplets like a cloud of pestilence swarming above. A thick piece of the ceiling fell right in front of her, and Nightstalker shrieked when the dust rose, clouding her entire vision. She pressed fiercely into the corner, wings straining for freedom. Even if she escaped through the ground bridge, there was no running.

Instead, she heard him grumble, "Bait, huh?"

Nightstalker squeaked again when Bulkhead surged to his feet, staggering in front of the open ground bridge. Her optics popped huge as saucers when he waved his hand, catching the attention of all the scraplets.

"Ready for the main course?" he shouted up at them. They all opened their mouth with rows upon rows of serrated, churning teeth. "COME AND GET IT!"

Nightstalker cringed into herself, hoping that the mech was big enough that the scraplets would bypass her tiny form. Ratchet leaned over and pressed a hand on top of Bumblebee when he rose to look at his friend acting as bait. Cliffjumper lied flat, staring up blankly as the endless amounts of scraplets zoomed over his head.

Nightstalker ducked her head into her knees and prayed to Primus as she heard the buzzing of the scraplets amplify loud as they dashed past her right and through the ground bridge, hellishly bent on feeding on their prey.

However, her fears were for naught. The massing amounts of scraplets dashed straight through the ground bridge, every last one evacuating the area as they pursued Bulkhead through the twinkling lights. Ratchet lifted his head, staring as the base fell into blissful silence, vacant of any scraplets except for the many that already coated the floor.

The medic groaned heavily as he pushed himself to a standing position, staggering over to Nightstalker's left. She jumped, forcing herself into the wall as she watched his hands, unsteady with pain, pull out the two medical berths he had; his trembling fingers prepped the med bay as he grasped heavily upon anything to brace himself and keep himself upright.

Curled up in her awkward ball, Nightstalker watched the movement of the Autobot base. She was extremely surprised when she saw Optimus and Arcee stagger back in through the ground bridge, ice coating their bodies and cold secreting from their bodies. It suddenly occurred to Nightstalker that they had been in subzero conditions for some unknown reason.

With them came back Bulkhead, and the youngest human shut off the ground bridge as Ratchet forcibly ushered everyone into the small area as the medical cubicle. Everyone, that is, except Nightstalker who stayed in the place she was, curled up in a ball and leaking like the rest but not to get medical attention until everyone else was taken care of.

Arcee and Optimus defrosted quickly with the help of a machine and the warm temperatures of the base, but Arcee lied across one of the medical berths, exhausted and systems struggling to recalibrate. Cliffjumper lied next to her, periodically grinning and muttering something smart at her that would make her take a half-exuberant swat at him. He was being his simple pain in the butt; he'd poke at her; he'd pick on her; he'd just mess with her until she proclaimed that if he didn't stop she was going to put him in a stasis he wouldn't wake up from for a week.

Bumblebee was resting in a stasis hooked up to machinery as well. Bulkhead sat on the floor, wiped out as he leaned against the wall. Ratchet sat rigidly next to Optimus who lounged back, hips looking . . . _very_ sexy in the position he was. Optimus looked relaxed, but his metal was still cold to the touch as his body slowly warmed.

Nightstalker was in pain, and her energon was really continuing to leak badly around her, but she couldn't find it in her to ask for medical assistance she didn't deserve. And, of course, the humans had taken over taking care of the heavily damaged bots.

"Report bio-circuitry status?" Ratchet asked professionally.

"Levels are rising," Jack said with a positive thumb up.

"Excellent. Rafael, keep a close watch on Bumblebee's electro-pulse monitor." He typed diligently on his own computer, listening to him without a word. "Miko, check Bulkhead's interface patch."

"It's steady," Raf replied.

Miko gave a thumb up also. "Looking good!"

Ratchet nodded. "Miko, how's Cliffjumper's patched left wrist?"

"Don't bother yourself, Doc," Cliffjumper's handsome voice echoed out tiredly. "Just fine, just fine . . ."

Ratchet sent a particularly severe glance to Miko, so she went ahead and checked it anyway. "It's holding up strong," she replied, referring to the metal that had been welded over the stump of his left wrist.

Ratchet nodded curtly, and Optimus leaned over. "Perhaps you should get yourself some rest, old friend." His face relaxed into a rare smile. "You saved quite a few lives today."

Nightstalker's orange optics were wide as she looked at those willfully strong humans hard at work, Raf attaching some wire Nightstalker didn't even know to Bumblebee's chest. "It . . . wasn't all my doing," Ratchet finally admitted, watching them hard at work. "We're just lucky this infestation happened . . ." he took a steadying and unbelieving breath, "on a Saturday."

"Our human friends may be small," Optimus said solemnly, "but they are strong."

Nightstalker cringed when her audio receptors were unprepared to pick up an extremely high-pitched scream.

It was unreal how quickly Jack and Raf had crowbars in their hands, aggressive stances taken. "Scraplets?" Jack burst, fearing just like Nightstalker did that a few had managed to stay in the base.

"SPIDER!" Miko shrieked at him. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked up and down her arms, all over her body. "Is it on me?" She proceeded to shriek screams, scrabbling at her arms and itching around her back as if it were crawling all over her, dashing out of the room with shrill cries. "Get it off!" she squawked faintly.

Bulkhead leaned over, watching her disappear down the hall. "Did she just scream like a little girl?"

Jack gave a helpless shrug. "Well, I suppose she is a girl . . ."

Raf wrinkled his nose a little. "But not little. I wouldn't have ever expected that from Miko. She's fearless!"

Nightstalker sat quietly in her corner, arms and wings still locked in their stasis cuffs. She watched as Jack and Raf returned to monitoring their hurt Autobot friends, and Optimus sent her a glance. She flinched back behind her knees, but he didn't say anything prodding and looked elsewhere for her comfort.

It was the first acknowledgement she had gotten from any of the Autobots that she was in the room. Granted, she didn't really want acknowledgement because she feared their condemnation of her, but Optimus's optics hadn't held any judgment of her . . .

Nightstalker's wings strained against her stasis cuffs, longing for freedom. As if on cue, she heard a mocking voice laugh in her ear.

_"Well well well, Nightstalker, how do we fare today in the hold of the Autobots? Liking your confinement?" _When Nightstalker held her silence, Starscream chuckled, extremely amused. _"No? Well of course not. Have you ever taken a nighttime flight in the sky?" _Nightstalker just barely managed to contain a destitute moan, pressing her helm more firmly into her knees than before. _"Oh, be sure, it is quite the joy,"_ Starscream continued. _"It is so quiet and peaceful, not nearly so many of those pesky rodents driving on the roads and polluting the air. The stars twinkle like glitter on the murky cheeks of the night sky. . ."_

Nightstalker tried desperately to tune out his enticing narrative of his most recent flight. Instead, she looked up to the six Autobots and two humans in the room. "Optimus Prime—"

She choked off suddenly when every eye in the area turned towards her. She had started strong with her declaration, but now with everyone's attention centered on her, she lost her nerve. Nightstalker shied back, especially at the curious and wary optics of Cliffjumper.

"I—I—" Nightstalker swallowed, dropping her face away. "I—I said that—I wanted to surrender, but . . ." Nightstalker took a shuddering breath, forcing herself to look into Optimus's blue optics when she declared quietly, "I want to defect to Autobot."

Utter silence blanketed the room at her proposition. Optimus shifted positions, turning more towards her. Arcee gave her dagger eyes, so did Bulkhead and Ratchet, but Cliffjumper just remained as wary, curious, and confused as before.

"Why do you suddenly wish to defect sides?" Optimus asked her gravely.

Her wings still strained against her cuffs with renewed intensity at Starscream's ongoing narrative in the back of her mind. "I—I—" She hesitated to say it was Cliffjumper. He was certainly an ongoing motive though, but with the way Arcee glared at her with murderous intent it made her wiring curdle with fear. "C-C-Cliffjumper, for one," Nightstalker stuttered, unable to keep looking over there when Cliffjumper was looking at her. "A-and the humans."

Optimus's optics studied her closely. "Cliffjumper I understand, but the humans? Pray, explain yourself."

"T-they . . ." Nightstalker had to look up to see them, and she saw that the frightened Miko was back. All three looked at her, knowing why she had suddenly changed her mind, but still bewildered that they had that much power over her. "They could have easily left me to the scraplets," she muttered, hitching her legs tighter to her chest. Nightstalker let her eyes drift down to the side, unable to look at them. "But they didn't. Even knowing I was a Decepticon. Even knowing what I did to—C—C—" Nightstalker stumbled across his name, unable to even say it around the guilt that clawed at her throat.

There was a long silence. She felt each beat of her spark in her chest hard and painful—whether for want of their acceptance or dread for the coming execution, she wasn't sure.

"Your request is granted."

Nightstalker looked up in surprise, but so did Arcee, optics black with fury as she situated herself between Nightstalker and Cliffjumper. "Optimus, you can't honestly be serious this time! We KNOW what she did to Cliffjumper! You can't honestly let that glitch run free around here!"

Optimus leveled a stern frown on her. "Arcee, my judgment is not for you to question. This—"

"I think it is mine to question after terrorizing Cliffjumper like that!" she snarled back, surprising strength coming from the source of her hatred. Nightstalker flinched and cringed when Arcee glared blackly at her. "You can't honestly expect me to take this atrocity in stride after she nearly killed and mentally scarred Cliff!"

Nightstalker quaked in rising fear, struggling to control her gasps especially when reminded by her burning guilt. She wanted to tear out her communications because Starscream still taunted her endlessly with his joy-riding flight.

"Arcee," she heard Cliffjumper say quietly, "it's all right—"

"No it's not!" she retorted back, feverish eyes slamming into his. "You can't even look at her straight, and you're sitting here shaking!"

"I said it's all right!" Cliffjumper shouted back. Silence fell over the room at his sudden vehemence, and Nightstalker heard his metal trembling. "If she wants to be an Autobot, fine. I KNOW what she did to me, Arcee. I don't need you reminding me as if my hand isn't enough to cause a recap!"

Arcee flinched at his hard words, optics widening. Nightstalker peeked up from behind her knees, seeing Cliffjumper sitting up too, his right hand clutching the berth until it began to give way beneath his servos. "Arcee, it's not just me," he muttered to her in the silence. "You're taking it way too personal because she used Arachnid's venom." Arcee recoiled again as if he had struck her.

Cliffjumper's optics were pinned to the floor, and it didn't take Nightstalker any time to figure out that he refused to look at her. Either that, or he couldn't bring himself to look at her. "And the sick irony is I'm more willing to give her a chance than you guys, and I was the one tortured. If anything, _I_ should be the one that wanted to throw her to the scraplets." His hand tightened, crunching the edge of the berth beneath his tightening force. The words gritted out from between his dentures. "Let her out of those cuffs, Optimus, she's one of us now."

When no one else raised any objections that thrummed unspoken beneath the surface, Optimus rose and walked her way. Nightstalker cowered when he approached, towering eons above her, but he was just as gentle and patient as last time. Optimus's hands deftly removed the stasis cuffs from Nightstalker's wrists, and then, her wings.

Nightstalker gasped when the pressure suddenly released from her wings, falling forward on her hands. Her wings—they were free! Nightstalker trembled on her hands and knees, flexing her wings as much as she could; left, right, up, and down. Her breaths were coming too fast and heavy, shuddering and audible, but she didn't care—her wings—they were free, and that was all that mattered. She literally had to withhold herself from weeping with relief. She stretched her wings as her hands tightened on the floor, having to physically restrain herself from transforming and taking off then in the need for flight. It didn't help that Starscream was still taunting her with his nighttime flight among the stars and kissed with the luminous light of the moon. She hadn't truly realized exactly how oppressed and suffocated she had felt with her wings bound, or how poetic Starscream could become when he wanted to.

Nightstalker jerked out of her indulgence of moving her wings when Optimus touched a gentle hand to her shoulder. She lurched away violently from his him, spark pounding rapidly inside of her with barely controlled panic.

His azure optics shimmered with something close to compassion. "You may come closer, Nightstalker, so you may be repaired as well."

Optimus retreated backward then, keeping his optics on her but sensing her need for a certain radius to be anywhere near comfortable. Nightstalker fluttered her wings open and closed restlessly like a butterfly, unmoving from her far corner until Miko walked forward a few steps and put her hands on her hips.

"Look, you've got to get over here so we can hook you up to the machines," Miko said. She made a clear gesture for Nightstalker to get closer. "Come on!"

Trembling violently, Nightstalker crept closer, edging away from Cliffjumper and closer towards the hulking Optimus since Arcee had a glare like death for her. Miko approached with a tube that would help stabilize her currently glitching systems. Nightstalker suspected it was stress, but it could be worse from the scraplets, after all.

Nightstalker shied away again when Miko approached closer with the wiring. Miko huffed, frowning at the former Decepticon before her. "What is WRONG with you?" she asked pointedly. "You act like you're afraid of your own shadow! I'm tiny compared to you! And I'm not even like a scraplet, my teeth are as dull as they get. I couldn't hurt you if I wanted. Jeez."

Nightstalker's shaking escalated when Miko touched her and attached the wire to her chest, but the girl didn't hurt her at all, just muttered something and went to talk to Raf and Jack about her status.

Jack turned around first. "Nightstalker, your spark rate is too high. You need to calm down." Nightstalker jerked at his gentle informing voice. "Can you turn on your cooling fans for me? You're core temperature is too high as well."

Still quivering like a leaf in the wind, Nightstalker did as he asked without a word. Instead, as Starscream continued to narrate a glorious nighttime flight, it nearly drove Nightstalker mad with longing—she was so close—so close! Her wings were free, and yet she still couldn't go out and fly! Her seeker mind was closing in on itself, slowly losing it without having flown for nearly a month.

Her eyes flicked to Cliffjumper, but his mouth was pressed in a thin line and his hand still clenched the berth tightly. Nearly senseless with the desire to fly, unwelcome by any Autobot, and delusional from the Decepticon voices that could mock her at every turn, Nightstalker bent over herself and clenched her hands to her helm, struggling to contain her rising hysteria; her desperate wings fluttered like a panicked, caught butterfly.

She pressed her face into her knees to hide the lubricant leaking from her eyes. She didn't want this. Even her loathsome job as a torturer was beginning to seem better. Primus, she didn't even want that, she just wanted—she wanted—

A scream nearly tore from her throat. She wanted out! She wanted the free skies that never judged her! She wanted Fli-Ni! She wanted her brother to cradle her in his arms and promise her everything would be all right! Everything would be all right! _Everything would be all right—!_


	10. Down Time

**Author's Note:**

**Kinda a short filler chapter, but I think it's needed. This episode is so loosely knit that I can squeeze in a lot of character development, and the next chapter should make up for this one**

* * *

><p>Nightstalker was closely monitored the next week. She was nearly under constant surveillance if she was out of her cell—always by one Autobot. More than one would be a waste because since Nightstalker wasn't meant for combat and would be easily subdued. To her carangid and fear, it was always either the distrustful Bulkhead or the murderous Arcee that assigned themselves to watching her. Only, with Arcee, Nightstalker could barely suppress her panic. It seemed the femme was physically restricting herself from pulling the trigger and if Nightstalker made one wrong move she was going to blow her central processor out without remorse.<p>

It wasn't as if Nightstalker did much anyways. She was too afraid to do anything, even interact with them. She just fixated herself in the far corner of the room, sat down and curled up protectively, and sat. She watched the Autobots and humans clean up the base—moving the fallen pieces of the ceiling, sweeping up the dead scraplets. Ratchet was hard at work repairing the ground bridge, and he reported his time making Cliffjumper's new hand was put on hold. Luckily, his work-in-progress hand had been stowed away once they learned of the scraplet infestation, and so Ratchet wouldn't have to start from scratch.

They still kept her weapons locked offline, but it didn't matter to Nightstalker. It wasn't as if she could have fought them anyways, and her homing beacon to the Decepticons were offline too.

Either way, Nightstalker's days were excruciatingly slow and filled with scornful disregard. No one paid her much of any attention except for those who held her at gun point. Not even Cliffjumper could manage to get himself to speak to her—he shied away from her mostly, more terrified than he wanted to let on.

"Chores are done!"

Nightstalker jumped and looked up from her designated corner of the main room of the base. She cringed away again when Arcee jerked her gun towards her.

Bulkhead walked into the room, Miko cheerfully riding his shoulder. "NOW can we do some dune-bashing?"

It was curious to watch Bulkhead's hesitation. He seemed a bit undecided, but he also seemed like he really wanted to make her happy no matter what. "I don't know, Miko," he said tentatively. "Last time I spent a week picking sand out of my articulators." When he caught sight of her slumping shoulders, he quickly asserted, "But there's a monster truck rally in town."

Nightstalker watched them interact. Miko had been an easy human to watch with her eccentric interests of monster trucks, speed metal, and zombies. Video games were a universal enjoyment, Raf chief among them. Jack was a bit harder, but from what Nightstalker gathered, he was a very responsible and stiff boy that hid a need for speed.

Nightstalker's orange optics flicked up to Ratchet when he said, "Optimus, I'm receiving a signal on a restricted bend. It appears to be coming from a starship inside this solar system."

Arcee kept her gun trained on Nightstalker even though Optimus had said it wouldn't be necessary. Instead, Nightstalker closed her eyes and dropped her head. She heard Ratchet type various commands into the computer. "It's an Autobot identification beacon," Ratchet breathed in shock.

Nightstalker's gut curdled. ANOTHER Autobot? She could barely endure the six in the room, much less another one!

It wasn't to be helped. Nightstalker heard Optimus state, "Unknown vessel, this is Autobot outpost Omega 1. Identify yourself."

There was a fizz of static and a subtly cocky voice. "I've had warmer welcomes from Decepticon combat brigades," the mech said back with all the careless ease of the world.

"Wheeljack?" Nightstalker jumped when Bulkhead spoke loudly. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. For once she was forgotten back in her corner as everyone's eyes were glued to the screen. "You old 'Con crusher! What are you doing all the way out here?"

The static whistled a moment before his voice came back. "Bulkhead? That you? What's with all the security?"

Bulkhead didn't even glance back at Nightstalker though Cliffjumper did. "The rock we're on is crawling with 'Cons," Bulkhead explained. "How soon can you get here and even the odds?"

"Sometime tomorrow," Wheeljack's voice shrugged. "If I put the metal to the pedal."

"Ha!" Cliffjumper's hard laugh echoed out, but a grin was teasing his mouth. "Wheeljack, if you've gotten that slow, you must be a lot older than I thought!"

"Cliffjumper!" Wheeljack's friendly voice returned. "I'd know that turbo-revving young punk any day! Watch your mouth, Cliff, I'm in the prime of my existence!"

Miko was positively glowing. "Another bot's coming here!" Her wide eyes turned to Bulkhead. "How cool is that?"

"Wheeljack," Nightstalker heard Optimus intone. She fluttered her wings a little and kept her eyes shut, trying to sink through a nonexistent black hole in the floor. "I know of him by reputation only. Can you verify his voiceprint?"

Bulkhead nodded, saying positively, "He is one THOUSAND percent the real deal, Optimus!"

"I can back that," Cliffjumper said, a light in his eyes about seeing an old friend.

Optimus nodded, taking his soldier's word for it. Nightstalker almost opened her eyes. He wasn't even going to run a background check? He was just going to trust him?

"We will send landing coordinates, Wheeljack," Optimus said to the Autobot over the line. "Safe journeys."

"See you soon buddy," Bulkhead said quickly. "I'll make sure you get a proper welcome!"

"And me as well!" Cliffjumper said. "If I'm not mistaken, I owe you an apology-back ride!"

Wheeljack gave one last laugh. "As if you could possibly pick me up! I'll see you two 'Con slaggers soon!"

The connection cut there, and Nightstalker considered this new curve with heavy spark. Another Autobot. Yet another one to judge her by the label on her chest. She squeezed her optics shut tighter. The Decepticon label on her chest nearly burned straight through her metal.

Instead, Nightstalker stiffened hearing that same mocking voice. _"How do you do, Nightstalker?" _Starscream eagerly mocked her. Nightstalker cringed into herself, wings fluttering restlessly as the mere mention of his voice and the lascivious detail of his next flight. _"Missing the sunny days? I must say, today is particularly beautiful, and I'd invite you to join me, but—Oh. Wait. That's right. You can't because you're an Autobot prisoner!"_ He laughed cruelly into her open communications, and Nightstalker gritted her teeth.

Forcing herself to summon every last bit of courage she held, Nightstalker stood up. Arcee's gun was on her so fast Nightstalker jerked, but uncertainly picked her way across the room, coasting widely around everyone to get to Optimus on the far side. She stopped with plenty of room between them, and stood uncertainly, vocals wound in knots.

Optimus looked down and towered over her with gentle intent. "What is it, Nightstalker?" he asked her. It was the first time she had been directly spoken to in the week she had defected from Decepticon to Autobot.

Nightstalker's lips trembled, but anxiety choked off all words from her mouth. Optimus raised a hand, waving off Arcee's gun. With stiff hesitation, she lowered the weapon, but didn't disengage. However, it was enough to loosen Nightstalker's vocal processor.

"I . . . May I please have . . ." She took a steadying breath hearing Starscream's taunting narrative of the clear blue skies, no clouds in sight—her metal hinged up with desperate longing, and she tried to shake it off. "May I please have a different communication line?" she whispered fast.

Optimus seemed surprised at the request, and even though Nightstalker trembled like mad, she stuttered her explanation in a miniscule voice. "Please . . . I—Starscream—he has tormented me . . . speaking to me . . . and I can't force the line closed . . . It can be a separate line, I do not care, but please . . ."

Optimus's eyes widened in shock. "You mean he has plagued you with threats the whole time we have kept your prisoner?"

Nightstalker nodded uncertainly. What Optimus didn't know was that it was worse.

"Nightstalker, there was no need for you to have endured that," Optimus stated firmly with compassion. "You should have told us sooner. Allow me."

Nightstalker shook uncertainly but allowed his kind hands to touch her audio receptors and rewire her to not her own line, but the line that the Autobots shared. It was startling for him to place such trust in her, but the instant he cut her off from the Decepticon line a nearly weeping gasp emitted from her vocals. Her stiffly perked wings sagged in relief at the merciful silence.

She jumped violently again when Optimus rested his soothing hand on her tiny shoulder, but his grip tightened just enough so she couldn't get away. Nightstalker quaked beneath his touch, a servos that absolutely swallowed her left shoulder.

"Do not fear us, Nightstalker," his tender voice told her. "You will come to no harm here under my watch. If anyone gives you trouble, do not hesitate to speak with me."

He released her then, and Nightstalker all but bolted for her designated corner, shrinking into a ball again. She replayed his words in her mind, catching the challenge he had set out to any of his Autobot troop that dared to question his judgment of letting her stay. Her spark lurched uncertainly. That meant if anyone so much as harassed her, Optimus would make sure it never happened again.

His protectiveness of her surprised her. Nightstalker didn't know what to make of his generosity. Instead she stayed crouched in her corner, watching as they rushed out to help Wheeljack fight some bogeys—which instead they didn't because the ground bridge was still having troubles. By the time Ratchet managed to get Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee out there, Wheeljack had already finished the five Decepticon seekers.

Instead as they all came back running through the ground bridge, Nightstalker pressed herself more firmly into the wall as she cowered behind and to the left. So far, this white, red, and green newcomer hadn't noticed her yet . . .

Bulkhead wasted no time, gesturing eagerly. "Jackie, come here! Meet my other best buddy, Miko! She can wreck with the best of us!"

Nightstalker's orange optics watched apprehensively as Wheeljack approached the tiny human in front of him. She waved. "Hiya."

He bent over a little, grinning down at her. "You keeping Bulkhead out of trouble?"

"I try," she said as confidently as she could, still a bit self-conscious if he wouldn't like her. "But trouble finds us anyway."

Wheeljack's optics warmed as he looked down on her. "We're gonna get along just fine." He turned around hearing Optimus's heavy steps, and he nodded. "Optimus Prime," he stated. "It's a privilege."

A smile tugged slightly at Optimus's lips. "Likewise, soldier. What have you to report from your long journey?"

Nightstalker was holding her breath, terrified of the bot turning around and seeing her with her Decepticon logo. She hitched her knees up to cover her chest, feeling like it was a beacon to condemn her.

"Been bouncing from rock to rock," he said nonchalantly. "Searching for signs of friend or foe. Now, I find both."

Optimus gave a grave nod. "We are few, but strong. We have suffered losses, but we have grown." He hesitated, eyes touching Nightstalker. "However, I must notify you, we have recently gained a companion defected from Decepticon ranks. Given the circumstances, she is extremely timid, and I hope not to cause her any more discomfort than needed as she begins to mesh into our troop."

Wheeljack looked over his shoulder, and serious blue optics collided with Nightstalker. Her spark jumped hard—those eyes knew her, somehow. At least, they had heard of her well enough, and they were distrustful.

However, he just turned back to Optimus with a nod. "Duly noted."

Still, Optimus's face relaxed into a smile. "And we would relish welcoming a new member into our fold."

"I would be honored," Wheeljack said humbly.

However, Bulkhead broke the pleasantries with, "Then let's get this party started!" He slapped Wheeljack so roughly on the shoulder that it cowed the bot at the waist. Wheeljack grinned mischievously and they both jumped into each other's chests with a chest bump.

Still, Nightstalker didn't move as the festivities started. After fetching some of the broken ceiling from the back, Bulkhead and Wheeljack immediately started in on a game of lob, and Miko eagerly hooked up her guitar to serenade them with speed metal. Nightstalker watched from the side, curled up in a ball as far away from them all as possible. Arcee didn't take part either, but watched idly while sending cutting glances to Nightstalker. Optimus retreated for a drive when she wasn't looking—Primes obviously didn't party.

"C'mon, Jackie. Show me what you've got!"

With a deep grunt, Wheeljack threw the metal ball as hard as he could. It slammed into Bulkhead who caught it, laughing, "Nice lob!"

He threw it back, managing to make Wheeljack skid back on the flooring as well. Cliffjumper stood with his hand on his hip, eyes narrowed as he watched them having fun. "Man, just you wait until Ratchet gets my hand fixed," he threatened lightly, restlessly shifting from foot to foot. "You guys wouldn't stand a chance against me in a game of lob!"

Bulkhead laughed heartily, interrupted by a grunt when he caught another pitch. "I know you're eager and all, Cliff," he said to the smaller mech, "but I doubt a mech your size could handle a lob from one of us!" He wound up and chucked the metal ball back at Wheeljack.

Cliffjumper let out a loud laugh, shaking his head. "Just you wait, Bulkhead—you're gonna regret those words when I put your aft on the ground!"

Wheeljack chuckled at his enthusiasm, flinging the ball back at Bulkhead. "I bet he could do it too, Bulkhead. By the way, Cliff, what did happen to your hand?"

Nightstalker looked up at Cliffjumper then, orange optics full of guilt and fear touching him. The ball passed between them twice before he finally took his eyes off her with a shrug, saying, "Just a friendly visit from the torturer."

Wheeljack threw the ball back to Bulkhead as his eyes took in the discolored mech with a bit more respect than before. "Really? That must have been a nasty encounter. How you holding up?"

His blue optics flicked uncertainly to Nightstalker and back. "Better than expected," he finally said, watching them try to best each other in the lobbing contest.

Nightstalker shrank guiltily into herself, especially when Cliffjumper didn't let on to the newcomer that it had been her who had tortured him. Nightstalker watched as the next lob Bulkhead threw at Wheeljack literally left the mech stumbling backwards.

"C'mon, Raf!" Miko urged the hesitant boy. "Show us some moves!"

"Oh . . . all right," he gave in easily. He stood up, and Nightstalker watched as he began to do a certain dance, and it took her mind a moment to register that it was the robot. She rolled her eyes—how novel.

Bumblebee jumped up seeing his young human dancing, and he began to mimic the movements. Cliffjumper's bored eyes alighted at the sight of them, and he declared, "Hey, now THIS is something I can do!" Cliffjumper quickly moved next to Bumblebee, following Raf's motions as well with a barking laugh. Nightstalker watched the three of them dancing together, feeling a little bit of lighter spark for once. They were cute as they danced together, and the more time Nightstalker spent out in the open watching the humans, the more she knew she had made the right decision in defecting to Autobot. She liked them all, and the family-oriented environment was refreshing—even if she wasn't included in it.

"Coming at ya!" Bulkhead shouted back at Wheeljack. He wound up and chucked the ball hard, the lob flying through the air at blinding speed. Nightstalker jumped slightly when the ball slipped between Wheeljack's fingers, crashed into the wall, and then proceeded to fall on the ground bridge control, completely knocking out Ratchet's hard work on it.

"You know?" he snarled, a bit more than put off. "I AM attempting to perform sensitive calibrations here!"

Nightstalker watched Wheeljack retrieve the ball, striking up a brief conversation with Ratchet. She returned her eyes to Cliffjumper and Bumblebee who were laughing with Raf as they danced the robot, Miko striking up another song—even if it wasn't Nightstalker's choice of music, the girl was exceptionally talented in playing her guitar.

Wheeljack and Bulkhead returned to playing their game of lob, Arcee keeping a steadfast watch on Nightstalker and Jack opting to simply watch the festivities as well. Nightstalker cut her eyes towards Ratchet who was working hard to repair the ground bridge, and she hesitated to interrupt him. Should she? The ball falling had really seemed to set an edge to his mood . . . But she assumed now was as good a time as any.

Nightstalker rose uncertainly to her feet, wings fluttering anxiously for what she was about to do and fluttering with yearning for the skies just outside of the base. She approached Ratchet hesitantly.

"Um . . . Ratchet?"

His eyes flicked from his work barely an instant at her. "What is it?"

His brusque tone intimidated her. Nightstalker shrank, hands crossing across her front protectively and wings twitching. "I . . . Um . . . I—I—I just . . . um . . ."

An irritated sigh vented from Ratchet's body. "Speak up, I haven't got all day."

Nightstalker ducked her head again. Finally, she whispered, "Thanks . . . for saving Cliffjumper . . ."

Ratchet paused then, looking up at her with a flabbergasted expression, but Nightstalker didn't stick around him any longer than she had to. Instead, she darted back to her solitary spot, hunkered down in a ball, and watched everyone having fun.


	11. An Old Hatred

After playing around with Bumblebee and Raf some, Cliffjumper let his eyes drag over to Nightstalker. She just . . . sat there. Determining that no one was going to offer her a friendly hand and offer some hospitality, Cliffjumper took a shuddering breath and decided, to pit with it. What better way to conquer his fears than by going up and just talking with her?

Still, Cliffjumper found himself rooted to the spot. Shackles of hidden terrors anchored him to the ground, and after an unsuccessful moment of hesitation he realized there was no way he could face her alone yet. Not . . . not yet.

Instead, Cliffjumper waltzed up to Arcee with a cheeky grin and jerked a thumb over Nightstalker's way. "C'mon, let's go talk with the sullen delinquent."

"No."

Her flat answer surprised him. His optics widened. He had expected her to resist him, but was she really going to be so obstinate? "C'mon, Arcee," he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek to sweeten the deal. Jack sitting next to her seemed to have his feathers ruffled a bit watching Cliffjumper's open affections to her. "It's just a little talk. We don't even have to have a deep, philosophical conversation, just—"

"I said no, Cliff," Arcee said again, eyes fixated on the far wall. Her mouth and optics were hard, and Cliffjumper suddenly realized that she was taking everything a whole heck of a lot deeper than he was. "There's no way you can get me to talk with HER. Not after what she did to you."

"Yeah," Cliffjumper said with a shrug. "Because I should most definitely be the one most willing out of all of you to forgive her."

Arcee scowled. "And why are you so willing to forgive her after what she did to you?"

Cliffjumper raised a brow at her, speaking over Miko's guitar. "What's this I hear?" He leaned forward, cupping his servos to his audio receptor. "Is that jealousy I hear?"

Her scowl deepened. "No! It's not!"

Cliffjumper chuckled then, shaking his head. "Most certainly not," he said with touches of sarcasm. His annoyance only caused her frown to deepen. "Are you crazy, Arcee? If that's what you're worried about, let me tell you, I feel NOTHING like that towards, might I remind you, my former torturer."

Arcee's lips pursed tight, and her optics dug into Cliffjumper's. "So? What is it driving you then?"

Cliffjumper glanced over to Nightstalker cowering in the corner, afraid of moving a muscle because of the guns that would point at her. He dropped his chin to his chest, muttering, "Maybe it's because I want to give her a chance. The way she gave me chance by helping me escape that place." When Arcee still refused to budge, Cliffjumper scowled back at her, unimpressed at her mulish tendencies. "Fine then," he growled back. He jabbed a finger at Jack before gesturing to Arcee. "Maybe you can talk some sense into her."

He started to move away, but glanced back at Arcee with an arched eyebrow. "You—" A hard strum of Miko's guitar strings interrupted him, and he was forced to raise his voice. "You DO want me here safe and alive, right?" A pained look crossed her features, and Cliffjumper jabbed his thumb to Nightstalker sitting alone. "Then you had better thank her someday, because without her I'd be neck deep in scrap."

To say Cliffjumper was irritated was the least of what he could be. He understood Arcee's anger—pit knew he shared it—but at least he was willing to put it behind him instead of holding a Primus-awful grudge. Instead, he tapped Bumblebee's shoulder. The scout's optics widened questioningly.

"C'mon," Cliffjumper tried to persuade him. He gave a nod in the black femme's direction. "Let's go talk to Miss Antisocial."

An uncertain whirring emitted from Bumblebee's voice box. *Um, are you sure? She's really . . . _Queen_ Antisocial*

Cliffjumper grinned, sensing his friend's hesitation and understanding—she was very standoffish. "Only because we haven't been that friendly to her," he said, elbowing him. "What's wrong? Scared?"

Bumblebee's optics dilated a little as Miko jammed away on her guitar, Bulkhead and Wheeljack's laughs filling the air as each tried to force the other to fall on their aft catching the lobs. *Well, I'm not . . . Are you?*

Cliffjumper gave as nonchalant a shrug as he could. "Well, I'm asking you aren't I?" He looked down, clenching his one hand into a fist. "I can't bring myself to go over there alone . . . C'mon, 'Bee. Please?"

An uncomfortable whir left Bumblebee's vocals. *Oh, all right . . . Whatever you say, Cliff*

Cliffjumper grinned then and slapped the back of his back. "Atta boy! Let's go."

Cliffjumper led a wary Bumblebee over to Nightstalker. The tiny femme looked up, orange eyes blinking wide at the intrusion of her space, but Cliffjumper just plopped himself down next to her. Bumblebee sat too. With the scout accompanying him, Cliffjumper was able to keep his confident façade in play even when his insides were wriggling like a dying worm in the sun.

"Hey! What's up?"

Nightstalker pulled tighter into herself, terrifying orange optics jumping from between Cliffjumper and Bumblebee on either side of her. Cliffjumper forced himself to regulate his breathing—she was more afraid of him now than he was of her. A curious concept to wrap his mind around considering his panicking spark . . .

When she failed to respond, Cliffjumper gave as reassuring a grin as he could. "What, are you telling me we're going back to the silent treatment again?"

Her wings fluttered like a trapped bird! It suddenly occurred to Cliffjumper exactly how long it had been since this seeker had had a chance to fly. "N-no . . ." she finally whispered, barely heard above Miko's guitar strings.

"See now?" Cliffjumper said. He wanted to poke her like he did Arcee, or shove her, or pinch her or pat her or something, but he couldn't bring his good hand to touch her, and the other hand was currently nonexistent. "That wasn't so bad, now was it?"

Nightstalker shook her head again, managing to rasp, "N-no . . ."

Cliffjumper shook his head, cupping a hand to his ear. "Now c'mon, speak up. Miko's got her jam blaring so you've gotta use the Primus-given vocal processor I know you have in you!"

Nightstalker's caged orange optics jumped between him and Bumblebee, so Cliffjumper said, "Easy, now. No need to act like we're going to bite off your head. You're one of us now, so relax."

She didn't relax. "What do you want?" she asked quietly, eyes seeking a way out without any success.

"Just to talk some," Cliffjumper said, lounging comfortably next to her. Bumblebee sat crisscross, resting his elbows on his knees. "So what's up?"

Nightstalker looked uncertainly between them. "Um . . ."

Cliffjumper waved his hand, disregarding her awkward stalling. "Don't worry about it. Now, I don't know if I'm truly speaking for everyone here, but I'd like to apologize for how we've been treating you."

Nightstalker glanced up at him nervously. "Uh . . ."

Cliffjumper was forced to press his lips tightly together at the sight of her. She was so timid! It was really surprising considering the circumstances . . . He smiled at her, finding himself loosening up the more he was around her even though his spark still tripped some in apprehension. "I'm meeting your alter ego again. First it was what happened in the torture chamber, and now all the sudden you're the shyest, most scared girl I've seen. Chill out—we're your friends around this joint though some of us could use a good knock in the noggin to set us straight."

When she still failed to sit at ease, Cliffjumper wondered briefly what could possibly get her talking. "Well then, Nightstalker, are you going to talk with us? Can you tell me anything about your brother? What was he like?"

He wondered if he was being too forward in asking, especially considering the way she flinched, but Nightstalker just looked between them both again before hugging herself a little tighter around the knees.

"He was . . . a lot like Bumblebee."

Bumblebee snapped to attention then, optics dilating wide with surprise until the entire center of his eyes were large and blue. *What?* he asked. *I am?*

"He is?" Cliffjumper heard himself echo. Talk about a different turn of events!

Nightstalker gave the tiniest of shrugs, looking over at the scout. "My brother was older than me, not younger . . . but he acted a lot like you."

Bumblebee's optics were wide with curiosity. *Really? How?*

Nightstalker's clawed fingers tightened around her legs, and her wings fluttered restlessly. "Well . . . For starts, sometimes the bots call you 'Bee for short. Fli-Ni never wanted to go fully by NightFlier. He said it was too much of a mouthful."

Bumblebee scooted forward a little. *Bumblebee can be a pretty big mouthful when you're trying to say something fast and precise* he conceded. *NightFlier—it's a good name*

Cliffjumper watched her nod to the small scout. "And he had the biggest optics I'd ever seen—he was so cute it hurt. Though you definitely have bigger optics, Fli-Ni's were big too."

A self-conscious whir transpired through Bumblebee's vocals. *Aw, now you're embarrassing me . . .*

Cliffjumper had to pointedly ignore Arcee's gaze of daggers from across the room; at least Jack was talking to her. Bulkhead and Wheeljack were too busy playing their game of lob to care much about their conversation, Ratchet had his hands full with the ground bridge, and Miko was jamming, uncaring anymore of who was listening to her electric guitar. It was Raf that caught Cliffjumper's attention as he made his way over having no one to play with.

Bumblebee whirred and beeped a greeting to his human, picking him up gently to sit him on his knee. The yellow mech looked up to Nightstalker again. *How else is Fli-Ni like me?*

"Lots of ways," she said, the ghost of a smile smuggling its way to her face. "He acted a lot like you—he was always curious and getting into places he shouldn't be. He was eager." Nightstalker looked down to Raf, giving a subdued gesture to him. "And he was smart too, like you."

"Who's Fli-Ni?" Raf asked, having missed the first half of the conversation.

"My older brother," Nightstalker told him.

Cliffjumper watched with growing amusement and compassion as Nightstalker began to interact for the first time, with Bumblebee and Raf of course. They were the ones that presented the smallest threat, and Cliffjumper sat idly next to them, loving to hear Nightstalker finally loosening up and talking about someone she loved. His spark swelled with compassion when her rigid position finally relaxed some, letting herself sit cross-legged though her servos clasped together. Catching sight of Arcee who was watching blankly, Cliffjumper winked at her.

She scoffed and tossed her head. Cliffjumper chuckled at her disdain, but he settled back as Nightstalker narrated to Bumblebee and Raf how they compared to her big brother in so many ways. For once, Cliffjumper felt very accomplished—he had finally gotten her to relax and finally form some good bonds with them—even if he was completely ignored now.

* * *

><p>The next hour of enjoyment had been fun, filled with exuberant war stories from Bulkhead and Wheeljack. The hour after that had collapsed into chaos.<p>

Nightstalker had listened with rapt attention towards the two wreckers while they told amazing stories, but when Miko had taken Wheeljack on a tour of the base Bulkhead had let his true anxieties show. He kept arguing that something wasn't right, that Wheeljack wasn't acting right. It turned out later that he had been absolutely correct.

After the terrifying threat of squishing poor Miko in his hands, Nightstalker was left rattled at the thought of losing one of the humans she had changed sides for. Besides that, the imposter Wheeljack had been set on keeping the ground bridge open so an army of Vehicons could get through and destroy them all. However, the REAL Wheeljack busted in and took the phony 'Jack down, and Bulkhead literally lobbed the fraud through the ground bridge.

After that day, the Autobots began to relax around Nightstalker, oddly enough. She didn't know if it was the fact that Bumblebee and Raf trusted her that began to make their minds change, but she wasn't shunned as horribly. Nightstalker became close friends with Bumblebee and Raf, enjoying the company of the two that reminded her so much of Fli-Ni and his cute innocence as a bot just a little too young to become a warrior in the field.

Wheeljack stayed for roughly a week repairing his ship while Ratchet repaired Cliffjumper's hand. Then, Wheeljack left again, proclaiming that there was just too much out there that he had to explore. While it had left the Autobots a bit saddened to see him go, they had all said their goodbyes to the mech.

Therefore, it was only a few days later that Nightstalker met the royal pain in every Autobot's afterburner.

Agent Fowler.

"PRIME!"

Nightstalker jolted, knelt in her corner that the Autobots were used to her being in by now. Optimus and Arcee walked up to the screen where a positively irate black man was shouting at the screen.

"PRIME!"

It was when Optimus passed by her that Nightstalker realized for the first time that this was her first time seeing the Autobot leader from behind. And, seeing his broad shoulders from the rear, ice chilled her insides.

She KNEW that back. A strangled sound choked the back of Nightstalker's vocal processor. She could still hear Fli-Ni's little laughs as he grinned, threatening lightly, _"Okay, get out of here, Nights."_

_ "But why?" Her smaller brows had puckered at the sight of her big brother looking around, uncertain about something, but he just blew it off with another cute grin. He waggled his fingers._

_ "Go on," he said, hiding some type of doubt in his blue optics. "I want to check out around here one more time."_

_ "Can't I stay too?" Nightstalker whined, pulling on his arm. "I want to explore too! I'm big enough now!"_

_ He waggled his fingers more threateningly than last time. "I'll only be a minute. Besides, if you don't get moving now, I'll tackle you to the ground and tickle your wings for the next vorn! Go on, you!"_

_ Nightstalker had shrieked when he made a grab at her, dashing from the old building in the city of Kaon, giggling like mad. She passed around the corner of the building across the street, peeking out through the thin, mulling crowds of the street. She stared at the ancient bar that was going to be torn down and rebuilt where Fli-Ni faded back inside their play place to fish around once more. That was when the warriors came, Autobot warriors of the war that all looked fierce and determined, but also exceptionally worried._

_ Chaos erupted quickly after that, and Nightstalker could only remember the crowds threatening to sweep her away. The bombardment had happened too fast—the Decepticons had swarmed like scraplets, assaulting the industrious city of Kaon. A simple street child like her brother, Nightstalker was abandoned again, easily kicked aside in the confusion of Cybertronians fleeing as Autobot and Decepticon forces collided._

_ "Fli-Ni! Fli-Ni!"_

_ She was lost in the screaming bedlam; innocents falling to either Decepticon or Autobot, Nightstalker didn't care. She dashed about the streets, flinching away from burning buildings, cowering from the crack of bullets, and stumbling over pieces of bodies dismembered from the blasts. Her city—her home—it was being obliterated by the war!_

_ In all her life, Fli-Ni had always promised that the war wouldn't touch her. He always promised that if the war managed to scare her, he would make it leak transmission he would scare it so bad. He always promised that he would protect her, that he would never leave her—!_

_ "FLI-NI!" Nightstalker screamed out, just a youngling lost in the turmoil of screaming mechs, wailing mothers, energon pooling, and the malignant heart of war. She dashed through the streets, slipping on slick energon and too afraid to transform and fly away when lasers filled the skies. The howl of seekers filled her ears and the roar of engines revving as the warring factions met head on._

_ Many of the innocents that had lived in Kaon were already dead and dying in the streets. The desperate reached out to her for help, but Nightstalker ran past, searching for her big brothers, lost in the clenching terror of the onslaught. "Fli-Ni!"_

_ She found him at some random building that was too charred and mutilated to even recognize. His small form was pinned beneath a heavy beam, and he was screaming in pain. With a sickening feeling that made her purge her stomach of energon, Nightstalker saw his wings twisted gruesomely. Grounded._

_ "Help me!" she faintly heard him crying out to the nearest warrior. Nightstalker could only see the broad back of the giant mech that glanced over at him, blue eyes pinning to the small boy. "Please, help me!"_

_ The mech stayed half a second of indecision before he broke into a run towards him, but a seeker shot through the air, landing on top of her brother. His scream echoed in the recesses of her mind, scarring itself deep when the foe laughed, taunting,_

_ "Save him now, Autobot scum!"_

_ She saw the lump near her brother, but her mind didn't register was it was. The Autobot mech jolted, dashing away without a second glance at her brother who screamed for help._

_ "Fli-Ni!" Nightstalker didn't think twice, but ran after him. She only gained a few strides closer before an explosion rocked the ground—the white lights blinded her optics, and heat swamped over her front. She was blown backwards and pain filled her senses. When her optics stopped glitching, Nightstalker looked up to find her brother and found only blackened and charred ground, orange fire licking the perimeter._

_ She faded in and out of consciousness. Stripped of any reason to live, Nightstalker was aware of the explosions that continued to erupt around her. Rubble sprayed over her prone body, the rumbles shook the ground violently, and the fires raged around her, but she didn't move. Only through divine intervention blessed by Primus himself did she survive the attack as Autobots died and retreated, abandoning the city of Kaon to Decepticons._

_ A purple beam of light glazed in her vision, the whir and cock of a gun heard. "Wait!" Someone pushed it away, and red optics filled her vision. "Look—it's a femme! She's alive!"_

_ "Our orders were to finish off any still living," another voice grumbled._

_ "Surely not a femme," the first said. The red optics filled her vision again, and Nightstalker felt herself picked up. She gave a piercing wail at the movement, pain erupting in her sensors._

_ "C'mon—even Megatron would have mercy to a femme. Let's go, pretty girl. You're better off with us Decepticons than dying out in this place."_

"Hey! Nightstalker!"

Nightstalker jerked wildly when Cliffjumper's voice cut through the horrific remembrance. Acutely aware that she was gasping uncontrollably with terror, Nightstalker's impassioned eyes flicked to those in the room with her. Every blue optic was pinned to her, but her frenzied orange optics collided with one certain pair that belonged to a back she hadn't seen in vorns. Broad shoulders she had all but given up on finding.

Optimus frowned at the mad and rising resentment coiling in her eyes. "Nightstalker?"

AUTOBOT SCUM.

With a strangled cry from her vocals, Nightstalker ripped herself from Cliffjumper's hand and tore from the room, fleeing with the devil on her heels. Gasping with both untold terror and a myriad of hate, disgust, and condemnation, Nightstalker ran to her designated room and threw herself down on her berth. With a moan that tore from deep inside, Nightstalker quaked in the solitude of her room.

She offlined her vocals. Then, she began to shriek, letting her silent howls fill the room so that no one would come with questions for her brief loss of sanity as she wailed for Fli-Ni.

Out of all the bots it could have been, it would have been the _gallant_ Optimus Prime! The revelation gutted her stomach deep, causing a violent shudder to rip through her suspension. Nightstalker's claws ripped against her berth, shredding it beneath her feverish fingers. HE had been the one to abandon her brother even while he pleaded for help! HE had been the one to turn his back, the one who had left Nightstalker without even the merest part of her brother to mourn over! Just blackened ground and the haunting glow of orange, a sight she had embedded into her very appearance so that she never forgot what she owed her brother, so that she never forgot the rage buried beneath that rose to the forefront of her mind!

Her servos clutched desperately to her berth, anchoring her down as she struggled to contain the despairing thrashing she wanted to give into. No, now was NOT the time to lose herself in the vortex of sorrow. Now was the time for action.

Nightstalker's shoulders tensed. He wouldn't get away with it. He may be bigger, he may be stronger, but Nightstalker was smart. With a vindictive twist of her mind's thinking, she was sure she could become a cunning adversary to tear out Optimus's spark. It may take time, but she could do it.

Nightstalker's shivering halted as hate infested deep. She was gaining their trust—it was the best way to strike unsuspecting. She would have to be swift and precise. There would be no mess-ups involved because she only had one chance. Nightstalker's orange optics glowed in the darkness, venomous, and rising with vengeance.

She did not forget the debt she owed Fli-Ni. It wasn't just in the wretched lust of revenge, but a part of Nightstalker believed it justice. Her fist clenched tight, and her insides turned colder than ice.

_Optimus Prime would pay._


	12. Self Defense

**Author's Note:**

**Cliffjumper POV! :D**

* * *

><p>Cliffjumper had begged, had PLEADED with Optimus to let him go with them this round. It was nothing dangerous, he had argued—they were just helping transport the DYNGAS from point A to point B and he was more than a little stir crazy. He hadn't been let out of the base once since the torture incident, and he claimed that Optimus was just coddling him like he was something breakable.<p>

The Prime's optics had tightened a little, and he had admitted that he was hesitant to send Cliffjumper back into action. But, his judgment had remained the same that Cliffjumper shouldn't engage in possible dangerous activities—including the threat of 'Cons—because he reasoned that Cliffjumper was still down one hand. He asserted that the difference between one hand and two could be the difference between life and death, and had maintained that Cliffjumper would stay in the base until fully repaired.

This left a very cranky and bored Cliffjumper with the easily perturbed Ratchet and three humans; Nightstalker was still lost in the back. Needless to say, Ratchet was going to blow a spark plug soon.

Cliffjumper hovered over Ratchet's shoulder for the umpteenth time as the medical bot slaved over his new hand. Cliffjumper tried valiantly not to be impatient, but his foot began to tap anyways as he watched the excruciatingly slow progress.

"Doc? When's—"

"I told you already!" the medical officer barked out, eyes unmoving from the detailed hand. "I don't know WHEN your hand will be finished, but it will still be well over a week! These are very sensitive and meticulous rewiring I need to be doing!"

Cliffjumper huffed at Ratchet's outburst, muttering, "Well, can't you speed up the process just a little bit—"

Ratchet heaved an extremely frustrated groan. "By the All Spark, Cliffjumper, until I get this done you are hereby BANNED from my laboratory, got that?"

"But—"

"If you'd stop hovering and let me do my job, this would be going much faster! Now get out of here!"

Cliffjumper groaned too, grumbling the whole way out of his area. Jack, Miko, and Raf looked up at him, and Miko elbowed Jack.

"C'mon, Cliff," she said, waving him over. "Let's watch some TV!"

Cliffjumper heaved a sigh, crossing his arms. "Look," he said, refusing to let a bite in his voice. "To me TV is as dull as it gets. I can't even engage in a video game! I can't even go for a drive!" He shook his head at the three humans that always strove so hard to keep him entertained. "I am bored out of my central processor, and I need OUT of this place. Some kind of activity, something!"

Huffing, the idea presented itself in his mind so quickly Cliffjumper almost didn't think about it. Could he manage to do it? It caused a prominent shiver of unrest to tremble through him, and before he could discourage himself and persuade himself that he wasn't ready, Cliffjumper accessed his communicator.

"Hey, Nightstalker!"

There was nearly an audible jump from the other side of the line. It was quiet for a moment, and then she finally said, "Um . . . Hello?"

Cliffjumper gave a true laugh at the bewildered tone of her voice. "Hey yourself! Get back out here, let's have some fun!"

His spark was slamming hard against the plating of his chest, and even though his vocal processor was squeezed tight, Cliffjumper refused to give in to his fear. Not this time—not ever.

"Um . . ." Her voice was hesitant. "I don't think so."

"C'mon," Cliffjumper said, putting his hand on his hip. "Don't make me drag you out your own room. C'mon, let's go to the back and wrestle or something!"

He heard her breath catch over the line. "No," she said with a noticeable tremble in her voice. "No, no I don't think that's a good idea."

Cliffjumper shrugged. "Okay, no problem, no wrestling. But seriously, we've gotta do something. Doc's tired of me hovering, and if I ask when my hand is getting done again I'm sure I'm going to get a wrench to my helm. And THAT won't be pretty." He chuckled, but from the silence across the line he realized that she hadn't seen Ratchet wielding a wrench yet so she didn't understand why they had to be afraid. Cliffjumper shook his head. He was liable to get one thrown at him soon, so she'd be sure to get an eyeful . . .

"How about self-defense?" he asked her over the communicator. "Fighting isn't your strong point, and I know you can do it. C'mon, please?"

It took a long moment, but finally she gave in. "Okay . . ."

"Good!" he burst. "I'll meet you in the training room in the back!"

Cutting off communications, Cliffjumper heard Miko burst, "You mean you're going to teach her how to fight? Can I come watch?"

Cliffjumper chuckled. "Sure thing! You guys want to come too?"

Raf's eyes widened. "Sure!"

Jack shrugged. "Why not? Let's go!"

Cliffjumper chuckled, putting Miko up on his shoulder and Raf on the other. He carried Jack in his hand. "Hey, Doc! We're gonna be messing around in the back!"

Cliffjumper started to go, but heard Ratchet bark back, "Don't break anything!"

He shook his head, cajoling back, "I'll be sure to break something or another just to get on your nerves!"

However, before they could make it into the hallways, Ratchet threatened back, "And who's the one making your hand?"

Cliffjumper flinched then. "Ouch, all right, you win." Cliffjumper sent an aggrieved expression to the three humans with him. "And you see? THAT'S why you don't mess with the Doc. He always gets his way."  
>Miko groaned audibly. "DON'T remind me!" she burst in agreement. "I think this medical business gets to his head!"<p>

Cliffjumper grinned, looking over at her. "You know? You're really starting to grow on me, chicka. Me and you, we're gonna have to pull a prank on the ol' Doc."

Her eyes widened large. She leaned forward, adamant. "Really? Do you think we could?"

Cliffjumper laughed generously then. "Of course!" he said, moving deeper into the base with a steady walk. "I can handle anything, and I bet you're sneaky enough for anything."

"Now hey," Jack said from in Cliffjumper's hand. He looked down. "Ratchet's been working really hard for you, Cliffjumper. I doubt he'd appreciate a prank."

Cliffjumper shook his head. "No, you see, Jack? You're just like Arcee. You don't relax for anything, and that's just what's wrong with the Doc. He just needs something to spice up his life!"

Raf looked a little uncertain. "Cliffjumper, I'm really not sure that's the best idea . . ."

"Of course it is! You two boys are just sticks in the mud. Count on the girl to be braver than either of you."

Jack lifted his head then with a challenge. "Hey!"

Cliffjumper shrugged, jostling poor Raf. "Hey yourself," he threw back. "Whaddya say, Miko? Got any exciting ideas?"

Her eyes alighted with a torrent of different ideas. "What would happen if we glued together his medical instruments? Oh, he'd freak!"

Cliffjumper laughed as they came into the open training room, Nightstalker not in sight. He began to let them down. "Great idea! Primus, and so cruel too! The Doc wouldn't know what to do—I bet he'd finally blow a spark plug!"

"But what if he needs them?" Raf asked worriedly as he got off Cliffjumper's hand.

Cliffjumper rubbed his chin in thought. "All right, I suppose you make a liable point."

"And he IS making your hand, and fixed you up," Jack reminded him. "Ratchet's worked hard to repair you."

Cliffjumper sighed then, dropping his face in his palm. "All right, nothing cruel . . ." His lips twitched as he looked down on Miko. "All right, let's do something that really shows how much I appreciate his work. How about we spam his computers with some animation of a cat that yells out how much I love him?"

Miko giggled, a grin splitting her face open. "That's perfect!" she agreed. Her eyes popped open. "Cliff, what if we painted all of his tools pink?"

"With red hearts!" Cliffjumper finished, bellowing with laughter. Miko collapsed into laughter too, the two delinquents plotting Ratchet's downfall. It was only when Jack nodded pointedly that Cliffjumper turned around, laughter slowly tapering off.

Nightstalker stood awkwardly in the room with them, and Cliffjumper's spark skipped a beat with apprehension. They were alone. If she wanted to hurt him now, she could because the humans couldn't protect him. Well, actually, her weapons were still offline, but that was about to change . . .

Instead, running high off the mischievous plotting against Ratchet with Miko, Cliffjumper sent the former Decepticon a smile. "Hey there," he said. "Nice to see your face again. Ready for a bit of tutoring?"

She gnawed uncertainly on her lip. "But . . . I don't have any weapons—"

"Yeah, that," he said. Cliffjumper walked up, trying to still the uncertainly of his spark for his next actions. "Here. Let me get you online for this."

Nightstalker flinched back violently from him, nearly bolting from the room. "I—I don't think . . . don't think that's a good idea!"

His brow puckered at her apprehension. "Calm down, now," he said, reaching out his hand again. She cringed again. "I'm not going to hurt you. And don't worry about the weapons being online—it's fine."

Still, she was scared. Cliffjumper frowned. He had been sure that he was going to be more afraid—he was putting her weapons back online! That in itself was enough to freeze up his joints because she could attack him (though he doubted she would) and it drug up terrifying memories of the torture chamber. Worse yet, onlining her weapons meant he would have to touch her, and the prospect of touching her without feeling pain was impossible to fathom.

Cliffjumper gave a small gesture. "Calm down," he soothed to her, unbelieving that he was offering condolences to her instead of the other way around. "Let me online you."

Nightstalker shied away again, looking tiny compared to Cliffjumper. Dear Primus, she was even smaller than Arcee . . . "I . . . I don't th-think that's such a good idea," she stuttered uncertainly.

Cliffjumper kept his hand outstretched, but didn't move forward anymore. "And why not?"

Humans temporarily forgotten, she whispered ashamedly, "You can't possibly trust me alone with you with my weapons online . . ."

Before she could back away again and before he could persuade himself to believe her words, Cliffjumper reached forward and onlined her weapons before she could protest again. His spark pounded hard with the knowledge that she could now hurt him if she chose, but he felt accomplished that he had crested another mountain of his fear.

"Sure I trust you," he said, thankful that his vocals didn't quaver. He backed up then, watching Nightstalker's wings flutter like mad. "Now, let's get this little training session started. Come at me!"

Her orange eyes blinked up, wide and horrified.

Cliffjumper gave a little shrug, fingers splayed on his one hand. "Look, I don't know what you can do yet, so just come at me. I've got to have a place to start. Attack me!"

She flinched hard at his wording. "I can't do that . . ." she whispered, scared stiff at what he was implying. "I—I don't even have weapons . . ."

Cliffjumper rolled his eyes then. "Come on, now, you've got plenty of weapons." Her gaze flicked back up to him, and his jaw tightened in fear. He wouldn't give in, he wouldn't let it conquer him . . . "You've got that tiny little machine gun, and you got that wicked blade of yours." That blade that had hacked apart his leg before the venom burned straight through—

Cliffjumper caught his breath, ignoring the repercussions of the torture chamber. "You've got your whips, and your barbed chains. You've got that lava you're so known for, and a limited supply of venom—" Cliffjumper choked off a second, struggling not to tremble. Fear was trying to choke his throat. The pain was coming back, surging its ugly head—her orange optics blazed without mercy—

No. Cliffjumper shook his head, focusing on her now. She was tiny, scared, and more scared than he was. Her optics were wide with apprehension now, worried about even having her weapons online. Her wings were still fluttering like a trapped butterfly. She was just like a butterfly, small and pretty and harmless—

But carried such potential for harm, like a poisonous butterfly.

Cliffjumper shook his head. No, just a butterfly. He focused in on her wings that continued to flutter, waving open and shut restlessly with the need to fly. However, they stopped suddenly, as if realizing he was staring at them. His spark lurched uncertainly.

"Keep moving your wings like that," he found himself saying. Her optics jumped up to him.

"Wh-What?"

Cliffjumper nodded vigorously. "Keep doing it. It . . . it helps me." She began to do it again for him, and at her confused expression, a self-conscious smile tipped his lips up. "You remind me of a butterfly when you do that," he told her freely. "It reminds me that butterflies are harmless, just like you."

Her mouth trembled. "I'm not harmless. Not . . . after . . ."

Cliffjumper nodded. "But now you are. Right now you couldn't hurt a fly. So it works."

Nightstalker crossed her arms, chafing them. "It helps me too," she confessed quietly. "I want to fly, and I can't, so this is the closest it gets."

Cliffjumper smiled for once at her, the smile true even though his spark still lurched a little uncertainly. "So it works."

An impatient groan punctuated their conversation, and Cliffjumper flicked his eyes to the three humans at the side sitting crisscross. Well, that is, except Miko who was sprawled dramatically across the floor with boredom. "Hurry up and fight already!" she burst out. "I'm tired of waiting!"

Cliffjumper chuckled at her disdain at the far side of the room. "Fine then, Miss Drill Sergeant," he called out to her. "We'll get busy!" Cliffjumper looked back to the doubtful Nightstalker and shrugged. "Like I was saying," he continued, "you've got weapons, you've just got to be inventive in the way you use them! Here, let out your whips."

His vocals grew a lump right after he said that. He swallowed, surprised he had managed it, and Nightstalker's optics grew large. "What?"

"That's what I said," he repeated. "Go ahead and let your whips out."

Filled with hesitation, Nightstalker tentatively let her whips coil out and rest limp. Cliffjumper felt his arms twitch in remembrance of what those whips could do to him before he shook it off with a shake of his head.

"Okay, now attack me."

Her orange optics filled with horror. "WHAT?" She shrank back, staring in shock. "You can't be serious . . ."

He tried to force away the trembling. "Very serious," he said. Cliffjumper waved his hand. "I am a warrior, after all. I know how to catch the whips now that my arms are free this time." Thank Primus his voice didn't trip over that sentence . . . "So go ahead. You won't hurt me."

Cliffjumper's spark filled with a curious compassion when SHE began to twitch like a leaf in the wind. "I—I can't do that," she stammered, dropping her head. "Not after—I can't. I-I-I don't want to hurt you . . ."

Cliffjumper nodded. "I know, and you won't. I'm ready this time. Come on—attack."

Nightstalker finally looked him directly in the optics. "I CAN'T," she repeated stronger, a tremor in her voice. "Not when I can see how scared you are."

Cliffjumper blinked at her, truly caught off guard by her deathly precise observation. He dropped his head briefly. "Scrap, thought I hid that well . . ." Finally, he shook his head, looking back up at her orange optics. "I know I'm scared. But that's also why I need you to attack me. I've got to get over this someday, and the quicker I can the better. So go ahead. I'm ready."

He watched her hung head and the way she swiped at her face. He felt his blue optics widen. She was crying? "Look," he said sympathetically, "you don't even have to hit me if you want to. Just throw the whip at me. Just do that."

Nightstalker finally lifted a trembling arm, and flicked the whip out so that it barely rolled towards him. Her surprisingly timid nature astounded him, but it was also funny—Cliffjumper barked with laughter, shaking his head.

"C'mon, now!" he encouraged her with a rakish grin, finding this easier and easier the longer they were back here. "Put your back into it!"

The tiny black femme bit her lip hard, wings unconsciously fluttering. "Uh . . ." She flicked the whip again, hardly hard enough to be harder.

Cliffjumper shook his head with a chuckle. "C'mon, Nightstalker. I know you've got an arm in you. How about we start like this—at least get your hand above your waist." The quirk of a smile pulled his lips, and his optics twinkled mischievously. "That would help lots."

Nightstalker quivered again, but finally threw the whip towards him with a bit more force than usual, getting it to snap in the air. "Aha!" he burst, inadvertently making her jump. "That's much better! Now see? You're not hurting me, and honestly, it's kinda fun seeing how much you hesitate. Now harder! Show me some strength!"

Cliffjumper grinned more seeing that his easy-going attitude and smile was starting to rub off on the tiny seeker. Her extremely tense position began to relax a little, and she lashed the whip out with more confidence than before. Cliffjumper smirked at her.

"Is that all you've got?" he teased lightly, suppressing a shiver because he KNEW she was a master with her whips. Well, a master when her prey was tied up—Cliffjumper shook it off with a lop-sided grin. "C'mon, use the Primus-given strength I know you've got in you!"

Nightstalker lashed out the whip again, this time with the most force he had seen yet. He laughed then, eyes sparkling at her. He took a step forward into her range, ignoring the way his spark leapt uncomfortably. "All right, good. Now try to attack me!"

She balked. "Uh . . . But—I don't—"

"Want to hurt me," Cliffjumper said with a wave of his hand. "No worries. Remember? I'm ready for you this time. So go ahead."

Nightstalker took a deep breath to steady herself. Cliffjumper's lips twitched at the cute hesitation she showed, and then she finally threw the whip out, albeit a whole lot softer than before. Cliffjumper's hand snatched out with blinding speed and he wrapped the tip of the whip around his hand, making her gasp and stagger forward a couple steps.

Pride busted in his chest—he still had it.

"See?" he said, tugging on the whip. Nightstalker tugged back, trying to get free without any success. Cliffjumper let a chuckle rumble through his chest, and he pulled her closer. She squeaked a little, dragged along easily with the whip until she was right in front of him. Her wings perked up and tensed, and Cliffjumper grinned down at her.

"See, this is what you DON'T want to happen," he asserted. "You let someone catch your whips like this and it isn't going to be good news for you. You're so small I could swing you around easily. Smash you into some walls, or whatever." Her orange optics were huge at what he was implying, and he gave a shrug, grinning down at her. "So I'm here to teach you how to get free—"

_"Cliffjumper, Optimus and the team are—"_

Cliffjumper yelped, unprepared to hear Ratchet's voice in his ear. "Sweet mother of Primus!" he growled into the communicator. "You scared the slag out of me, Doc! What is it?"

Ratchet's irritated grunt filled the other end of his communicator. _"Optimus and team are being waylaid by _humans_ of all things. I assumed you would want to know. Get back up here."_

Cliffjumper rolled his eyes, smirking into the line. "Fine then, you cranky old coot. We're coming." He sent an overly aggrieved expression to Nightstalker and the humans. "Doc wants us back up front." He let Nightstalker's whip fall from twisted around his arms, and she jumped back from him like he was fire. He didn't say anything about it as she raveled the whips back into her arms. Instead, he knelt to the humans. "Hop on."

Then, a bright idea lit up in his head. "Come here, Nightstalker!" he said to her. She looked surprised, but approached hesitantly.

"Um . . ."

When Miko jumped in his hand first, Cliffjumper grinned and deposited the girl on Nightstalker's shoulder. She stiffened audibly, wings perking tightly, but she didn't move for fear of Miko sliding off. "I know you're good buddies with Raf and 'Bee now," he said, picking up Jack next. "But you need to cozy up with the rest of us too." Before she could protest, he put Jack on her other shoulder. She held perfectly still, as if he had just put two ticking bombs on her shoulders.

Cliffjumper chuckled as he picked up Raf and put the boy on his own shoulder. "Lighten up!" Miko burst to Nightstalker, grinning at her. "You're more paranoid than Ratch, of all people!"

Cliffjumper grinned. "C'mon, you guys. Let's go see what horrors the Doc's got for us."

As they headed back to the main room of the base, Miko made lots of small talk with the nervous Nightstalker. Cliffjumper's lips twitched. Yeah, things were getting pretty interesting around here, especially once they got her to relax.


	13. Freedom

"Optimus," Nightstalker heard Ratchet as they entered the main room. "Prepare to initiate phase two. Five miles ahead to the south you will reach the rendezvous point."

"What's up, Doc?" Cliffjumper cajoled to him. Ratchet jumped, then sighed heavily. Eager to be free of her burden more from being uncomfortable with the humans yet than anything, Nightstalker let Miko and Jack down to their couch. Cliffjumper deposited Raf and bounded up to Ratchet. "So I hear the bots have been having a busy day?"

Nightstalker stood uncertainly behind them, watching the dots on the computer that tracked the Autobots. "You have no idea," Ratchet muttered. "It seems there is a human group called MECH that wants to harness the most innovative technology. They're trying to apprehend the DYNGAS from the bots, and they're currently strapped down with orders not to transform—"

Ratchet cut off suddenly, frowning deeper. "Optimus," he warned, "you have company!"

That was when Nightstalker saw the six extra blips on the screen. Decepticons. And by the speed at which they overcame the Autobots, they had to be seekers. She crossed her arms guiltily. If she were a better fighter, she could help the Autobots fight them off in a dog fight. However . . . she wasn't trained in arts like that.

"Engaging," Ratchet reported. Nightstalker's head jerked back up. That meant the Autobots and Decepticons were attacking each other.

There were several minutes of nothing as they waited for the Autobots to scrap the Decepticons. Nightstalker watched Cliffjumper pace agitatedly, muttering things like, "I should be out there . . . Love to scrap me some 'Con scum . . ." and various other things.

"Prime!" They heard Fowler's voice through the open channel. "Silas got wise to phase two!"

"I understand! I—" A burst of static interrupted Optimus's voice. Nightstalker's wings twitched uncertainly, and Cliffjumper whirled around, blue optics narrowing at the screen.

"Prime?" Fowler repeated. "Do you read me? Prime!"

Miko was the first to state the obvious. "Optimus is down!" she burst.

"MECH's gonna grab the DYNGAS!" Jack exploded as well. "We need to think of something quick!"

Nightstalker bit her lip. The other three were too busy fighting off the six 'Cons that had them outnumbered. Optimus was out a little ways, currently locked in a temporary stasis. What could have caused that?

Raf's little voice was a bit hysterical with worry. "You mean . . . like a phase three?"

Cliffjumper growled, stomping up to Ratchet. "All right, enough is enough! Bridge me out there, Doc, I've gotta help!"

Ratchet whirled on him with severe eyes. "NOT against Optimus's orders," he snarled back, "and NOT with only one blaster while both aggressive forces of humans and Decepticons are out there! You are not properly equipped yet!"

Nightstalker quailed away at their anger. She wasn't enough for this either. She couldn't fight.

Jack was mumbling to himself as Cliffjumper fisted his hand in anger. "All right," he said, talking it out, "if MECH wants the DYNGAS, they have to get ON that train."

"What if we get on board first?" Miko cut in excitedly. "You know? Run some human on human interference?"

"Absolutely not!" Ratchet barked out.

Jack nodded. "Yeah. That would be suicide . . ."

"Hel-LO?" Miko burst. "The United States of Meltdown? Lives are at stake!"

"Yes!" Ratchet exploded. "YOURS!" His scowl was terrible to look at. "You not only want me to bridge you into a confined space, but one traveling at ninety miles per hour!" He shook his head with frustration. "I can't even count the number of ways that could go wrong. Mass displacement, trauma, twisted limbs, metal burn!"

The three humans blinked at him slowly, making him backtrack a bit sheepishly. "Well . . . maybe not the last one . . . Regardless! It is nearly impossible to fix ground bridge coordinates on something moving at that speed!"

Nightstalker's optics were fixed on Raf who was typing furiously on his computer. Cliffjumper still paced, furiously grumbling about how he wasn't helpless. "Would it help," Raf asked, squinting at the screen, "if we had access to the train's coordinates?"

Within a few moments a yellow bleep that represented the train showed up. Nightstalker felt pride surge in her chest—the boy was a genius.

Ratchet made a disgruntled face. "Well . . ."

Nightstalker watched with worry while Cliffjumper watched with brewing agitation as Ratchet and Raf calculated the coordinates they needed in a complex math problem. Nightstalker spark twisted apprehensively as both Miko and Jack jumped through the bridge. This wouldn't work, they were sending kids up against full grown men . . .

Her spark and wings fluttered nervously. Cliffjumper paced, continuously arguing with Ratchet that he should be out there, not some kids. Raf hacked the train to help, but was kicked off within a few minutes. This was not good, not good . . .

Mustering every ounce of courage she had left in her, Nightstalker came up to Ratchet. "Use the last coordinates," she said to him, struggling not to stutter. "Let me out there."

He turned with a flabbergasted expression to her. "What? You barely have any functioning to fight with! And you're a Decepticon!"

"WAS a Decepticon!" she fought, wings twitching nervously. She was pretty sure the medical officer could dismantle her in a few seconds. "Just because I haven't got . . ." she let her claws scratch at the symbol on her chest, "this thing removed, doesn't make me a Decepticon! I changed sides, and now I want to help! They're just kids, Ratchet, let me out there!"

The medical bot hesitated, distrust in his eyes, but Jack's distressed voice filled the room. "Ratchet! MECH blew the train tracks! You need to bridge us out of here! The soldiers too!"

"We've lost access to the train data!" he said back with incalculable frustration. "I can't bridge you back without your coordinates!"

"Ratchet!" His blue optics collided with hers again, and Nightstalker threw a furious gesture to the closed bridge. "Open it up! I'm a jet, I can beat that train!"

His optics hesitated for half a second before he locked the last coordinates in and the ground bridge flared open. Nightstalker transformed right in the room and with a blast of her engines, shot through the open bridge.

Wind gusted her immediately, and her spark howled—she was free! Flying! It took all the restrain in the world to hold Nightstalker back and focus on the extreme matter at hand. Dashing in between the mountains, Nightstalker saw the train in the distance and a Peterbilt truck revving its engine desperately to catch up.

Her spark stilled. Optimus. His back was too her, open for clear shot with her machine gun. How easy it would be to abandon the kids and take the shot! Her spark howled in fury when Nightstalker refused to take the shot yet—she doubted her little guns were enough to take him down, and she was going to save Jack and Miko!

Nightstalker darted past Optimus, gunning it straight for the open door of the train where she had caught the sight of pink hair. Transforming, Nightstalker landed on the top of the train and knelt down, looking inside.

"Nightstalker!" Miko burst. Without giving them any time to thank her, Nightstalker grabbed both humans and flipped off the train, using her jets to slow them before her feet hit the ground.

A Peterbilt truck hurtled past, and Nightstalker set the humans down. "Nightstalker, the soldiers!" Jack shouted up at her.

She blinked. "What?" That meant she would have to make multiple trips. "How many?"

"I don't know!" he burst, giving a helpless shrug. "There was one in with us! And the DYNGAS!"

Atomic meltdown—Nightstalker looked back up to see Optimus grab the head of the train and pull back with all his might, struggling to slow it forcibly.

Without much thinking, Nightstalker jumped up and transformed, engines kicking loud as she raced back towards the train. She hovered uncertainly above Optimus and the head. She couldn't do what he was doing—she'd snap her legs because they weren't strong enough to hold back something moving that fast. All she could think—actually, remember—was Cliffjumper that morning saying, _"You've got weapons, you've just got to be inventive in the way you use them!"_

Thinking wildly, Nightstalker swarmed through her weapons. She could latch her whips to the front of the train and pull back, but she'd strain her thrusters so quick she was sure she'd never be able to fly again. With a start, she saw the wheels of the train kicking up massing amounts of sparks. The wheels! They were still trying to go forward! Her mind switched thought patterns to her lava, but that wouldn't melt it quick enough—

Airachnid's venom.

It was instantaneous. Nightstalker didn't debate the idea any longer but transformed and landed on the second length of the train. Yanking out the half full vial number two of three, Nightstalker unscrewed the cap and leaned over the side. Using it as sparingly as she could, she dropped several drops on the wheels.

The effect was automatic and she felt the train lurch a bit to the side, metal shrieking against metal as the venom ate up the churning wheels. Leaning over the other side, Nightstalker did the same, feeling the train slowing more and more as Optimus strained against the speed. Leaping to the next one, Nightstalker let Airachnid's venom eat up those wheels too, and before she knew it, she and Optimus were out of time; at the end of the tracks, the train slowed to a halt.

He looked back at her with eyes she didn't get to process before they both looked up to the sight of a helicopter, blades beating the air. The helicopter hesitated before turning and fleeing, and it suddenly occurred to Nightstalker that that had to be MECH.

Nightstalker quaked on the top of the train, feeling drained from the excitement. She tossed the empty vial away, curling up in a ball. Optimus looked back on her with warming optics, saying, "Intact, Ratchet. Crisis averted." His optics frowned though as he looked back at the disappearing helicopter. "But the world in which we live is a different one than previously imagined. One which has spawned its own Decepticons in human skin."

"Hey!"

Miko's voice was faint, and Nightstalker looked up to see both her and Jack running towards them. A bit sheepish that she had forgotten them, she followed Optimus when he headed towards them as well.

His broad back was turned towards her again. Nightstalker's hands twitched in the effort to hold back, desperately wanting to attack him and bring him to his knees. She wanted to use that last vial of Airachnid's venom to pour it down the back of his neck to incapacitate him from retaliation. Still, now wasn't the time. She quaked in hatred, but bottled it up, forgetting all the kindness he had showed her before.

However, Nightstalker's mind once again turned to the fact that she was outside. In the sun . . . and the gentle breeze . . . Her orange optics looked up to the beckoning sky, endless blue without the hint of a cloud in sight. Her spark rate quickened. Her wings twitched and fluttered, and her metal hinged up.

Flight—it was so close! She was right here, free! Right now, ready to fly! Nightstalker literally began to tremble with the undying urge to give in. After months of being locked up inside the base, she quivered so hard in desperation for the skies that her metal tingled together.

Nightstalker jerked hard out of her day dream when the ground bridge blasted open near them. The other Autobots had rendezvoused with them at some time, each bot carrying their respective human. They began to pass through the ground bridge, and Optimus's blue optics collided with Nightstalker's longing orange ones.

The killer of her brother. The angry thought slashed through her mind, but he didn't go through the bridge yet, and he didn't order her to go through either. His optics warmed. "It has been quite some time since you have flown," was all he said as they stood there together.

Nightstalker's pulse quickened. Unbelieving, she looked up to the beckoning sky and back to the Autobot leader. He gave a nod, and Nightstalker didn't hesitate any longer.

Giving a shout that echoed from the hollow recesses of her body, Nightstalker transformed and shot into the sky, thrusters blasting on full force. She howled with the gift of freedom, twirling in the open skies and gunning herself as fast as she could possibly go. The wind caressed her body, and the pent-up craving for flight that had plagued her for weeks in the Autobot base exploded and faded away.

* * *

><p>"Ratchet, you may close the ground bridge until I send for it."<p>

Cliffjumper looked up in shock. He and Nightstalker weren't through yet. Ratchet was equally surprised.

"Optimus?" he asked.

Optimus's voice was warm across the line. "It has been quite some time since our captive seeker has flown."

Cliffjumper's blue optics widened. He was letting her have some freedom—he was letting her fly! Cliffjumper turned from Arcee's leaking arm, eyes pinning with lusty desire at the open ground bridge. Freedom—it was just beyond the pearly gates!

"As you will," Ratchet said with a hint of bewilderment. Cliffjumper transformed, gunning his engine as he drove towards the ground bridge, and with a loud hoot, he dashed through just as it closed behind him.

"Freedom!" he howled, feeling his wheels tread on the dirt. He was absolutely sure he had kicked up a cloud of dust behind him and into Optimus's face, but he just pressed his gas pedal to the floor, tearing off into the distance. He whooped loudly, vaguely hearing Optimus telling them not to go too far. "Freedom!"

THIS was what he had needed! No stuffy base to constrict him, but a good race! He wished Bumblebee were out with him, but instead contacted through the comm. the only one there.

"Hey, Nightstalker!" He turned his eyes upwards to see the jet eagerly flying through the air, twisting and turning with excitement. "Let's have a race!"

For once, he heard a true laugh spill from her. "A race? You couldn't keep up with me!"

Cliffjumper slammed on his breaks, sliding to a halt and turning around. "Ha! You just try me! 100 yards out and 100 yards back!"

The black jet zipped down and hovered above him. "Ready? You won't see anything but my aft!"

"A good view, I must say so myself," he laughed at her. "Ready? On your mark, get set—GO!"

Cliffjumper slammed on his gas pedal, sinking it to the floor as he took off with a roar of his engine. Still, the jet above him had her thrusters blast on and she darted out over twice as quick. Refusing to lose so easily, Cliffjumper forced himself faster, darting past Optimus as Nightstalker already turned around and zipped back. Hardly a few seconds later he heard her cajole, "Finished! How about you?"

He didn't answer, focused, but his concentration was broken when the black femme jet passed overhead again, making it back to the end and flipping around before he could even make it to the first turn. "Hey now!" he hollered back at her. "That's just showing off!" Her laughter sang out again, and if Cliffjumper had been transformed he would have been grinning from audio receptor to audio receptor.

Instead, as he braked and whipped around, he heard Nightstalker's energetic laugh as she stopped at the opposite end, flipped around, and shot herself into the sky, twirling all the way up until she was speck.

Giving a warm laugh, Cliffjumper bellowed at her, "C'mon, give the grounder a bit of respect!" Feeling more than playful as he shot past Optimus again, Cliffjumper blasted his speakers on with Aretha Franklin's RESPECT, laughing with Nightstalker when she heard it through the communicator.

Cliffjumper sang along, definitely off key and off note, but he couldn't give a flying frag as he jumped the train tracks over and over just for the hell of it. When the most well-known part of her song began to play, Cliffjumper laughed and drove right over the train tracks.

His voice rattled with his body as his suspension jiggled as he flew across the tracks. "R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Find out what it means to me! R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Take care, TCB!"

His voice broke horribly on "care" but it didn't bother him. Cliffjumper just laughed and laughed as the sun beat down on them in a great summer's day.

He didn't know how long they stayed out there, but he couldn't give a flying frag. He jumped the train tracks over and over, feeling his suspension shock every time he landed hard, but it was an innocent blast to envision jumping over a river of lava or salt water teeming with sharks. He raced as fast as he could and swerved in between the few trees lining the tracks and tore doughnuts into the dirt.

Finally, Optimus spoke to them through the open communications. "I think it's time to wrap it up, you two," he said to them with underlying warmth. "You've been burning energon swiftly."

"Aw, c'mon, Op!" Cliffjumper laughed, finally noticing that the sun was going down. "Five more minutes? Another hour? Please? We've just got out!"

"Please?" Nightstalker echoed, still soaring giddily through the air. "Nighttime flights are fun and pretty! Please? Just a little longer?"

When Cliffjumper heard the silence of hesitation from Optimus he let out an energetic whoop, hollering, "Drink up the freedom now, Nightstalker! We've got it for just a bit longer!"

She echoed his shout with a yipping cat-call, and Cliffjumper laughed freely at how eager and relaxed she became when she flew. They needed to get her out flying more often!

Still, Cliffjumper found himself running tired and thin long before Nightstalker. Exhausted from messing around the whole day, Cliffjumper transformed up from his alt mode and walked up to stand next to Optimus.

A smile teased his lips as he looked up into the night sky, only able to see Nightstalker by the orange glow on her thrusters. "She's something else, isn't she?" Cliffjumper said to the boss bot.

Since his eyes were glued to Nightstalker still twirling and spinning in the sky, he didn't see Optimus's lips twitch into a smile. "That she is."

Cliffjumper leaned against the wall of the small valley, watching as Nightstalker suddenly turned her nose up to the sky and go far up until he lost sight of her. Then, after a minute, Cliffjumper saw her in a steep nosedive towards the ground. His spark rate picked up when he thought she should pull up, but she kept that vertical plummet to the ground. He chanted to himself that he trusted her, but he was still relieved when she pulled up and skirted just feet off the ground, zipping forward with speed unparalleled. She halted in front of them, performing a backwards flip before her thrusters kicked in hard and shot her back into the sky.

These antics continued for a long time yet. Cliffjumper watched her black metal blend in with the black skies, stars twinkling as her backdrop to a presentation of grace and agility. She would perform endless barrel rolls, triple back flips, and skim the ground with the merest of inches to spare. She would laugh and throw herself into countless front flips, but transform back into her bi-pedal mode in the air like a diver through aerial waters before transforming back and catching her own fall.

It was then Cliffjumper understood Optimus's never-ending patience through the day and why Optimus hadn't been strict in making them return to the base. He . . . enjoyed watching Nightstalker. She was having so much fun he felt like he could feel it through his own suspension, and he realized that Optimus had been having fun by just watching them play like kids again. Cliffjumper's lips slanted up in a small smile as he watched Nightstalker twirl.

It was finally Optimus that had to break the spell, contacting Nightstalker through the communicator. "All right, Nightstalker. It's time to come down now."

Still, Nightstalker didn't come down immediately but soared for a bit longer. She stopped her avid tricks and flips and instead just coasted languidly through the sky, circling slowly as she stalled. Cliffjumper felt his mouth twitch in rare sympathy as she struggled to let go of the brief freedom she had earned.

Finally, she glided slowly down, circling at a sparingly steep width, slowly making her way to the ground. Cliffjumper was sure she had swindled five more minutes until she suddenly darted back up into the sky. She disappeared out of sight again, too high up to be seen, and then she came plummeting back down at her suicidal speeds and steep drop.

Nightstalker pulled up at the last second, flipping back around as she transformed. She let out a small sigh of contentment, and her orange optics flicked up to the two mechs at the side.

Cliffjumper's spark stopped in an uncannily unknown way. His blue optics widened at the sight of her as she stood straight, energon flushed high in her cheeks and glowing slightly in the darkness. She was bolder, somehow, freer, as if she had lifted a veil that had been oppressing her, and Cliffjumper was now just getting a peek inside at the true Cybertronian femme she had hidden so deftly. There was a cute mischief about her—a sparkle in her eyes, a slanting twitch in her smile—that he'd never seen before. Somehow, the intimate caress of the winds had transformed her from the heartless cruelty he met in the torture chamber or the paranoid coward in the Autobot base. She was . . . different. Stronger, liberated . . . _beautiful_.

Cliffjumper jerked back to the world hearing Optimus's voice say, "Ratchet, bridge us back."

With the effective jump-start, Cliffjumper realized that his spark had ceased beating before, but now it was rapidly making up for lost time, slamming hard and fast in his spark chamber. Primus, what had he been thinking? What had possessed him to even let his thoughts run off in that direction?

However, he was swiftly reminded of exactly what made his head turn when Nightstalker lifted her face to the soft breeze, sighing away her troubles. Her wings drooped a little with relaxation, not sorrow, and her orange optics closed as peace engulfed her tiny frame.

"I needed that," she whispered quietly to them.

Cliffjumper jolted harder than he meant to when the ground bridge suddenly blasted open near them. Sweet Primus he needed a recharge if he was as jumpy and sappy as this. Giving his central processor a firm shake, Cliffjumper let his lips tip into a smile, effectively hiding his anxieties.

"I needed it too," he echoed, giving a last stretch. "That was fun—refreshing. But now, I'm ready for an energon cube and to hit the sack. I'm exhausted." He saluted to Optimus and Nightstalker. "See ya in the next vorn."

Passing through the ground bridge, Cliffjumper found an empty base save for Ratchet—ah, that was right, the rest had all gone home with the humans.

Ratchet was trying to look grumpy, but his optics were warmer than meant to be as he asked, "Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Sure did," Cliffjumper said with a tired grin, hearing steps behind him. They were light—they had to be Nightstalker. "I'll be back to annoy you in the morning." Cliffjumper left the room, glad Ratchet even stopped to ask Nightstalker because once he hit the hallway he fled like Unicron himself was snapping at his heels.

Retreating to his berth, Cliffjumper all but slammed the door and pressed his one palm flat against it, letting his helm rest there as he tried to control his sputtering spark. His splayed hand slowly fisted.

_My spark is mine._

He had yet to give it to Arcee, and one measly flip from a pretty femme wasn't going to change his mind. Cliffjumper sighed and shook it off, contemplating that energon cube he had forgotten to grab. However, a stasis was beckoning him to just forget it until the morning.

Giving in, Cliffjumper flopped down on his berth and took a deep breath. The best thing about sleeping would be he'd forget all about that pretty face by the time morning came. The worst thing about sleeping was he may or may not wake up—no, worst thing was possibly getting himself locked into stasis because he didn't refuel.

Cliffjumper made a face. Ratchet would have his head if he didn't wake up . . .


	14. Forgive Me Back Ride

**Author's Note:**

**Yay! A little more fluff and . . . Yeah, I know I forgot to upload on Sunday. Had my dance recital (which turned out very well) and was too tired to even think about it, and Memorial day was uber busy. Hopefully this cutesy fluff stuff makes up for it! ;)**

* * *

><p>Nightstalker willingly going out to help Miko and Jack on the train really helped things around the Autobot base.<p>

Ratchet's respect grew for her (if a hint of apprehension still stayed). Bulkhead finally gave up his grudge to Nightstalker with the gruff remark that if she had saved Miko she was all right in his book. Nightstalker was relieved when she got Ratchet to agree to remove her Decepticon insignia and replace it with an Autobot emblem. It gave her little giddy feelings on the inside to know that she was accepted somewhere when it had never happened in her past life. Always the loner . . . She felt cared for in this environment, and that was what made her revenge on Optimus fester the worst.

She didn't know whether she lusted for it or if she was haunted by it. Every time she saw his back that pain would slash through her, but the doubt butted its head in every time she saw Bumblebee smile at him or eagerly throw his spark into whatever Optimus asked of him. Her claws gouged more trenches into her berth at night until she was forced to flip it over just to sleep on it.

However, it was still Arcee that made Nightstalker feel like dirt. And unfortunately, it wasn't all Arcee's fault. Sure, the dagger eyes cut and the cold shoulder bruised, but Nightstalker found herself a bit angry at herself that she let it get to her. Not only that, but compound it with the fact that Nightstalker felt inferior to the femme.

She was everything Nightstalker . . . wasn't. She stood tall, proud, and serious, and she held a will capable of withstanding even Optimus. Arcee was strong—she could FIGHT! And she could fight with the best of them. She was constantly on the front lines, Optimus's "go-to" girl; she had purpose, she had people who admired her, and to really drive the stake of jealously in, she was beautiful with striking eyes and curvier than Nightstalker could have dreamed. Nightstalker felt like the disgusting shadow of a femme covered in black—not attractive with blues and pinks that complimented her frame or pretty blue optics. She was stuck with the haunting orange, just like the past that covered her like a hazy shroud, stifling the individual hiding beneath it.

Currently engaged in a fascinating game of patty cake with Bumblebee, Nightstalker let her eyes stray to Cliffjumper on the medical berth who was sparkling red with his new paintjob. He was getting his hand attached today, and Arcee hovering around the medical area was taxing Ratchet's patience. Cliffjumper's excited fidgeting didn't make it any better, and finally, Nightstalker saw an iconic moment of Ratchet.

Filled with exasperation, Ratchet barked, "Hold STILL, Cliffjumper! I can't get your hand attached if you keep wiggling like a child!"

Cliffjumper grinned rakishly up at Ratchet like the petulant child he was accused of being, saying cheekily, "I thought an experienced doctor like yourself knew how to handle younglings?"

The attack was so swift Nightstalker almost missed it, but a sharp _bang_ echoed out and Cliffjumper yelped, his good hand flashing to his head. Her orange optics widened at Ratchet's irreverent bedside manner, and her hands messed up the game with Bumblebee. He whirred cutely with distress that they had messed up.

"Yeow! Primus, Doc, what's your problem?"

Ratchet scowled, brandishing the wrench threateningly. "THAT'S how I deal with your type!" he growled before muttering under his breath as he carefully began the process of attaching his hand again.

"Excuse ME for being for being eager to get my hand back!" Cliffjumper snarled back—but he did behave himself and didn't move a mite more.

Nightstalker's lips twitched when he sulked into silence, and Bumblebee tinkled a laugh too. *That's what he gets* Bumblebee said with crinkling eyes. He leaned in close, holding a hand up in a whisper. *Just don't get on Ratch's bad side* he told her is a hush. *You'll fly almost scot free when you've got a check up or something*

Nightstalker smiled at Bumblebee, eyeing the notoriously rough medic of his field. He was currently bent over Cliffjumper's wrists, carefully attaching wires in his toil. She leaned forward too, whispering back, "I think I can remember that."

Innocently engaging in the patty cake game again with silly grins over the Autobot that didn't know he was being gossiped about, Nightstalker eyed the medical table again. Her lips tipped at the sight of Cliffjumper sitting sullenly on the berth.

*Don't underestimate Ratchet though* Bumblebee said suddenly, wide blue eyes dilating. *He's the best medic I know, Nights*

Nightstalker felt her breath catch, and her hands messed up their game of patty cake yet again. At Bumblebee's worried whir, she tried to shake it off, stuttering, "S-sorry, Bee, I guess I'm just really awful at this game . . ."

*What's wrong?* he chirped, eyes dilating again with worry. *Was it something I said?*

Nightstalker took a deep breath and let it out. Instead, she let a wry smile tug her lips up some. "It's nothing, Bee," she said again. "It's just been a long time since I've heard someone use my nickname."

*Your brother?* Bumblebee asked with guileless optics.

Nightstalker nodded, lips pursing. "The one and only. Primus knows you remind me so much of him . . ."

She heard the rev of an engine behind her, and Bumblebee looked up with wide optics. *Bulkhead and Miko* he chirped.

Nightstalker glanced behind her, bouncing her crossed legs where she and Bumblebee sat in the floor. Bulkhead's door popped open and Miko jumped out with an immediate and loud groan. "You sound just like my parents!"

Bulkhead transformed up with a confused look. "Aren't they . . . Japanese?"

Miko didn't bat an eyelash. "They may SPEAK a different language, but you SAY the same thing."

"Because we want the best for you!" Bulkhead pleaded. Nightstalker tentatively waved to Miko, and the punk-rock girl saluted back. "And that means making sure you go to school, not jail!"

"Uh-oh," Jack said with a snarky smirk. He leaned on the railing, sarcasm seeping from every wiseass word. "What'd you do?"

Nightstalker rolled her optics. Sometimes a bit more of Jack would show through his stern personality, and he could be quite the smartass when he wanted to be.

Bulkhead just knelt down to Miko, saying, "Look, Miko. Before I was a warrior, I was a laborer—construction. I can build stuff, I can break stuff—THAT'S IT."

Miko blinked up at him for a second, and then her face split into a grin. "I love breaking stuff!" she burst, smashing a fist into her palm. "I wanna be just like you, Bulk!"

The green mech gave a heavy groan as the computer beeped. "Why would you want to be like me," Bulkhead asked, "when you could be . . . a medic, like Ratchet?"

He pointed to said mech who had temporarily abandoned Cliffjumper for the beeping computers with the stern remark to not move or he'd get a whole lot more than just a wrench.

Nightstalker stood, shrugging. "Ease up, Bulkhead," she said, crossing her arms. "Construction's just fine if that's what she's passionate about." Her lips screwed up when they both looked to her. She avoided their gazes. "She could do a lot worse. Construction's a fine choice of job."

Unconsciously, her gaze flicked up to Cliffjumper again, and he just stared back, knowing exactly what she was hinting at. Finally, he just shook his head.

"I'm detecting a fresh energon pulse," Ratchet stated to them, "from the nation called Greece. An ancient city, quite historic, I believe."

Bulkhead looked to Miko with a twinkle in his optics. "Ancient Greece, huh? Oh, field trip!"

Nightstalker had to chuckle to herself at how quickly Miko jumped on that. Cliffjumper shouted out quickly that he'd do it, but Ratchet pulled rank because he wasn't finished attaching his hand yet. Cliffjumper groaned loudly and irritably, but it ended up being Bulkhead and Miko driving through the ground bridge. Nightstalker's lips twitched when Ratchet returned to piecing together the last bit of Cliffjumper from his time in the torture chamber—no matter how put off the mech was that he still hadn't had a single assignment in the months since his imprisonment.

Ratchet set his mouth in a grim line, standing from Cliffjumper. "I'd waste my breath telling you not to stress your—"

"Thanks Doc!" Cliffjumper burst with a rakish grin, leaping up and giving the startled medical officer a chest bump and friendly hit to the shoulder. "You're the best!" Nightstalker watched the elation light up his eyes as he let out a whoop, jumping into a clumsy handstand. "Check this out!" He struggled to hold it for several seconds and ended up falling awkwardly forward. He crashed on his back with a laugh.

*I can do it better!* Bumblebee jumped in, mimicking the handstand with just as much hassle as Cliffjumper had. He fell too, and Cliffjumper laughed at him, optics sparking with the challenge.

"Can NOT!" he barked back, chuckling as he attempted the handstand again. "I'm better at everything and you know it!"

*Are not!* Bumblebee chirped hotly back.

Nightstalker's lips tipped up in amusement as she watched both mech's trying to out-compete the other. It wasn't long before they both had the handstand down pat and they were trying other radical things to oust the other. Finally, Cliffjumper gave it up with a wave of his hand and grinned over at Arcee. She blinked, optics widening.

"Now look at this," Cliffjumper burst and picked her up around the waist, hoisting her up with both hands. She gasped, squirming in his grip to get away.

"C-Cliffjumper! Put me down!"

Cliffjumper just laughed warmly, and Nightstalker's lips twitched when he threw Arcee up and caught her again, grinning at her disdain. "Put you down when I can finally pick you up? With BOTH hands?" He chuckled, nuzzling his helm to hers. "I don't think so."

"C-Cliffjumper," she stated as strongly as possibly, trying to free herself from his strong grip, "let me down!"

"Why?" he asked candidly, grabbing one shoulder and the opposite thigh. Arcee almost squeaked when he bench-pressed her above his head. "I could juggle you with both hands!"

The energon was flushing into her cheeks, giving them a rosy hue. "Cliffjumper, have a little control for once!"

"When I just got back my hand?" he said cheekily. He flashed a grin to Bumblebee, optics twinkling mischievously. "Hey Bee! Catch!"

Arcee shrieked when Cliffjumper tossed her to Bumblebee, and Bumblebee caught her with a laugh. Arcee growled shortly, wrenching herself from Bumblebee's arms and dusting herself off. "You—Cliffjumper—are so infuriating!"

Cliffjumper's dentures just flashed as he winked at her. "Please, that's the whole reason you fell for me! Say it, say it Arcee—you like it!"

The energon was clearly warming her cheeks bright pink. Arcee sputtered a moment, lips squirming, before she finally gave a sound of extreme exasperation and stalked off in the opposite direction.

Cliffjumper laughed warmly, turning his grin towards Nightstalker who couldn't hide her own smile of amusement. However, his happy expression flat lined and Nightstalker felt her own expression deadpan.

His blue optics stared at her curiously, the only sounds in the missile silo that of the video game Miko and Raf were competing in. After a moment, his optics seeped compassion her way and his lips screwed up into a slight smile.

He walked her way, and Nightstalker's spark jumped uncertainly. What? She took a step back, but he just turned around and curled his fingers in a gesture for her.

"C'mon," he said wryly. "Forgive-me-back ride."

Nightstalker blinked uncomprehendingly. When she did, Cliffjumper's grin widened, and he threw a wink back to her. "It's what I do to forgive people and/or to have people forgive me. So in other words, I'm saying it's no big deal about the torture chamber. So hop on and let's just put it behind us."

Nightstalker felt her breath stop. Her metal hinged up in disbelief, wings perking at his confession. Her lips trembled, and she turned her face away.

Shame poured through her.

"No . . ." she whispered, shaking her head. She felt lubricants swelling behind her optics. "I can't . . ."

"Sure you can," he said, using that supportive tone he had used to pull her out of her scared shell. "Just hop on—you won't be heavy."

*I'd do what he says, Nightstalker* Bumblebee said with a cheery chirp. He moved over to watch the video game, saying, *Cliff always manages to get what he wants*

Nightstalker shook her head harder this time, saying stronger, "No. I—I can't . . . You . . ."

"Yeah you can," Cliffjumper just repeated, waggling his fingers to gesture her closer. He arched an eyebrow back at her. "Do I have to come and get you or are you going to just get on?"

Nightstalker shook her head again, retreating back from him. "No, C-Cliffjumper, you don't understand—" Nightstalker shrieked slightly when he grabbed her, hoisting her up onto his back without any more preamble.

"Then fill me in on the way," he said. Nightstalker found herself wrapping her legs around his waist to keep from falling; he had such a strong grip on her wrists that she couldn't get away if she tried. "Once around the base and we're done."

The energon flushed brightly into her face—indignation, not embarrassment. "Cliffjumper, put me down!" she cried out, trying to pull her wrists free of his grip as he walked them down the first hallway of the base. "Let me down! I—" Nightstalker choked on her words a second, and she fisted her hands and dropped her head. "I don't deserve this!"

"Nonsense," she was surprised to hear Cliffjumper say immediately. Nightstalker lifted her head, blinking owlishly without understanding, catching the lubricants in her optics. Cliffjumper nodded his head to the passing Optimus Prime who blinked with surprise at them. A grin tilted his lips up and a twinkle crinkled his optics. "Hey, Prime."

Nightstalker avoided the Prime's gaze, but it only made her eyesight collide with the left side of Cliffjumper's face, and her breath caught seeing where the welder had left its mark permanently. A thin line ran down the junction between his face and his helm, a constant reminder that it had been HER hand that had caused him that pain. His screams slashed across her countenance, and his despairing moans replayed in her audio receptors like a malignant plague.

Nightstalker gritted her jaw, struggling to control the tears threatening that he didn't see. "C-Cliffjumper, put me down!" she repeated, struggling harder than before. He just re-fixated his grip on her, holding her fast. "I said I don't deserve it!" she gasped, the lubricants falling freely down her cheeks now. "Let—Let go! Let me, Cliffjumper, I don't deserve—I'm—I—I don't deserve forgiveness!"

Cliffjumper finally glanced over his shoulder, truly worried now, but his blue optics widened when he saw her crying. "H-Hey, whoa, c'mon now, don't cry." Still, he didn't let her go, just shifted her around so that he was holding her to his chest, awkwardly patting her shoulder. "C'mon, Nightstalker, I—I don't do tears. C'mon, don't cry . . ."

Nightstalker beat his chest plate weakly, wanting nothing more than to hit him hard and force him to let go of her, but she was so terrified of hurting him and the screams that haunted her—a violent tremble ripped through her.

"I said I don't deserve it!" she wept again, shivering and fluttering her wings restlessly. She could still see that look in his azure optics when he had lifted his head and pleaded for mercy; she could still hear his shrieks, the stench of burning metal, his broken wails in that dark room of torture—

Another violent shudder tore through her, and Cliffjumper passed a worried hand over her wings, gently kneading her shoulder. "All right, try and calm down for me? I'm really not cut out for this crying business . . ." He patted her shoulders awkwardly again as she struggled to bottle up the sobs, hugging him tightly even though she wanted to just shove him away and put safe distance between them.

"Look," Cliffjumper said, "it's not a matter of if you think you deserve forgiveness or not. The whole point is I'm GIVING it to you." Nightstalker felt herself crying harder at his words like salt on a raw wound. "It's all right. I forgive you—for everything. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Yes it does!" Nightstalker cried, hitting him again. "It—I—After what I did—no one can forgive me for what I've done!" The guilt festered deep as she struggled to control her sobbing, wings twitching restlessly. She didn't deserve it—she deserved to suffer, and then die, and it still wouldn't be enough. She shivered. She could still feel his metal ripping beneath her claws, and his energon slicking her hands.

_Why couldn't you have just let me die?_

Nightstalker trembled in his arms, burying her face into his neck. "I can still hear your screams . . ." she whispered hoarsely, guilt and fear stealing her voice away.

He patiently held her in the abandoned hallway. "I'm not screaming now," he stated softly.

"But you were," she rasped, shaking so hard her metal tinkled together. Nothing could describe the horror, despair, and pain that had made his voice shriek and break. Little sobs slipped past her mouth. "How can you possibly forgive me after what I've done to you . . . ?"  
>The arms wrapped around her tightened a little. His answer was delayed in coming, but finally, he murmured, "I don't know . . ." He shook his head, cuddling her close to his chest. Feeling herself slipping down, Nightstalker tightened her legs wrapped around his waist.<p>

Cliffjumper vented a sigh through his system. "I really don't know," he said quietly, clearly remembering every second of his time as a prisoner of the Decepticons. "Maybe saving Jack and Miko had a part in it. And the way Bumblebee really adores you. And how protective Optimus is of you."

Nightstalker cringed as if his last statement had been a slap in the face. The guilt festered worse, digging its claws in deep.

Cliffjumper hugged her tighter. "All I know is that that femme I saw before you started torturing me? She's right here. And the last of that torturer died when she set me free."

Nightstalker's crying renewed again at his moving confession. "H-How can you know that?" she hiccupped around sobs. "I-I—I could go back to that at a-any time . . . it would be s-so easy . . ."

"You won't," he said softly, but confidently. "I trust you. You're an Autobot now—you're with us. You wouldn't betray us for the world."

The sobs grew harsher, and she felt her hands digging into Cliffjumper hard. He stiffened slightly at the touch of her claws, a faint repercussion of the torture chamber, but he relaxed again.

Primus, if he only knew how inadvertently he lied! Something she lusted for with all her spark and yet she dreaded with every wire inside her body—the death of Optimus Prime. He had to atone for what he had done—or in more exact words, what he hadn't done. She had to kill him, and yet couldn't, and she would. She trembled in Cliffjumper's grip, leaking optic lubricant into his shoulder wiring.

His thumbs stroked comfortingly against her. "All right now," he muttered, hefting her up again when she began to slide down. "Let's stop all these crocodile tears. I'm not a fan of crying after all—it really kinda scares me." He shook his head, patting her shoulder again. "Calm it down, Nights. Deep breath. It's all right—forgiven is forgiven."

_Forgiven._ The word was alien to her, but like a sweet balm to her spark caught in turmoil. Her shaking slowed as she followed Cliffjumper's instructions, and she tightened her arms around his neck.

Seeing that she was finally calming down, Cliffjumper nodded and grunted, shifting her around again so that she was on his back. "Good. Now let's finish this forgive-me-back ride already!"

_Forgiven._ A tremble caught in the back of Nightstalker's throat as she held on tight, burying her face in his neck. He really WAS different, special, and now more than ever, Nightstalker was glad she had saved his life. After all, he spread cheer around like that silly Kris Kringle character, so light-hearted all the time even plagued with memories of the torture chamber. Forgiving to a fault, too, since he could forgive her of the torture.

Not only that, but . . . She owed him. By Primus, she owed him so much. She had met sweet Bumblebee so much like Fli-Ni who filled something inside her that was empty. She had friends like Ratchet and Bulkhead. Despite Arcee's hate to her, Nightstalker had a femme to look up too—a femme that gave her the drive to become stronger and become her own femme full of fortitude and will; one who never backed down in the face of danger. Arcee challenged her to conquer her fears and achieve the desires of her spark, be they good or bad.

And even Optimus . . .

Primus knew she owed Cliffjumper so much. She hugged him tighter as he paraded her around the base on his back, handsome face set forward. Through him, she had been brought to a place where she belonged.

Nightstalker bit her lip, burrowing her face into his neck while a few more trickles of lubricant seeped down her cheeks. _Forgiven._

"C-Cliffjumper . . ." She couldn't raise her voice over a whisper she was so choked up, but that was okay. No one in the world had to know but him. "Thanks."

His two hands tightened on her. "No problem, Nights."


	15. Impish Nature

Cliffjumper had thrown a supportive wink at Nightstalker when they returned from their forgive-me-back ride, and by that time Nightstalker had a glow about her. It was evident especially when Bumblebee came to meet her eagerly, but he slowed, optics dilating.

*Nightstalker* he chirped curiously, optics shuttering at her. *What's up? You look . . . good. I mean—* A flush of energon touched his cheeks in embarrassment. He waved his hands while a slightly giddy smile played at Nightstalker's lips. *You looked great before, I'm sure! It's just, now . . . I dunno, I might sound kinda stupid, but you're kinda radiant in a way*

Nightstalker bit her lip, eyes twinkling playfully. "I am," she whispered secretly to him, leaning forward to him. Bumblebee bent down a little, taking in her secret with sealed lips. "Cliffjumper—he—he—" Nightstalker felt a wash of peace soothe her, and she let out a tranquil sigh. "He forgave me," she whispered to Bumblebee, finding her hands taking the bigger mech's in her own.

Bumblebee's optics dilated the widest and bluest she had ever seen, such unique eyes and so adorable it tore her spark out. *Nightstalker, that's great!* he said excitedly. He swept her up in the bear of a hug, making a rare giggle slip from her vocals. *That's awesome! We should celebrate—* The excited mech suddenly gave a depressed whir, door wings drooping a little as he glanced over his shoulder at the assembling Autobots. *Oh . . . We can't. I've got a mission. Even the kids are going—we've got to get the Energon Harvester before the Decepticons do.*

Nightstalker blinked in confusion as Bumblebee sat her down at the far end of the missile silo. "What's an Energon Harvester? Does it do what it's named after?"

Bumblebee nodded. *That's exactly what it does. But it can take energon directly from living bots too.*

Nightstalker's spark skipped a beat. "Dear Primus . . ."

Bumblebee nodded again, glancing over his shoulder to the others. *Yeah, and it's in a museum. The kids are going to go in and steal it since we're all too big to sneak around*

Nightstalker bit her lip in worry, and she caught Bumblebee in an anxious hug. "You be careful, hear me?" she whispered.

A soothing toll echoed from Bumblebee's damaged vocals. *Of course I will* However, he was momentarily distracted by her fingers playing over the top junction of his wings, and a low, rumbling bleep dragged out slow. *Primus . . . Nights, when you do that, I feel like I could purr like a cat*

A small smile played at her lips. "Fli-Ni used to do it for me," she said, fingering the upper-base of his wings. It was a spot between her shoulders that had been exploited by Fli-Ni many times to get her to do what he wanted.

*Like this?*

Nightstalker heard an answering sigh escape her lips when Bumblebee returned the tender gesture. Bliss captured her from the gentle feel of his fingers kneading the responsive base of her wings between her shoulders, and she relaxed into him.

A tinkling laugh left Bumblebee. *Could I get you to do anything like this?* his mischievous voice intoned.

Nightstalker lifted dubious optics, cracking one open to look at him. "Possibly. What is it?"

*Could you steal Ratchet's wrench?*

Both Nightstalker's eyes snapped open. "His . . . wrench?"

Bumblebee threw a suspicious glance over his shoulder to see the medic was preoccupied before whispering, *I bet everyone would like it. You saw what he did to Cliffjumper today . . . He's a menace with that thing*

The disgust in Bumblebee's voice was adorable, and Nightstalker bit her lip, looking towards the back of the medic. "I thought I wanted to stay on his good side?" she asked with a lively twinkle in her optics.

Bumblebee's optics dilated seriously. *Ratchet HAS no good side*

Nightstalker had to stifle a giggle at that, and she grinned. "Okay," she said in a hushed whisper to him. "I'll do it! I'll have that wrench by the time you get back from your mission—"

"ALL RIGHT! A MISSION!"

Both Bumblebee and Nightstalker laughed hearing Cliffjumper's eager voice bellow out his success. Bumblebee smiled down at Nightstalker. *Looks like Cliffjumper's going with us*

She nodded. "It'll be good for him," she said, giving a slight shrug. "He's a bit stir crazy, and all his annoying traits are starting to come out my way since he's too scared to provoke Ratchet."

At her rakish grin, Bumblebee laughed again, much more hearty this time. *That sounds just like Cliff!* He hugged Nightstalker once more for good measure as Optimus called him over. *I promise I'll take you out scouting for energon with me, next time! It'll be fun!* He ran off towards the antsy group, waving towards Nightstalker. *See you soon! We'll steal some energon from the back too, to celebrate!*

The ground bridge had blasted open, but Ratchet suddenly whirled around with fire in his blue optics. "Oh no you won't!" he barked at Bumblebee who just transformed down with trouble-making laughter. "You'll keep your grimy hands out of the energon reserves—" But the scout was already through the bridge, and Ratchet could only huff as the rest passed through.

He turned a particularly fierce gaze on Nightstalker. "And don't you be giving him any ideas," he threatened lightly, and a brow rose.

Nightstalker just felt her wings fluttering rapidly with the overwhelming urge to fly, and she crossed her arms, hugging herself tightly. "Primus," she pleaded to the god, ignoring Ratchet, "I'm so happy I could—I could fly right here in the base!" Giving a laugh, Nightstalker twirled once to herself, the desire to fly blinding her sensors because this was the happiest she had been in a long time.

Still happiness can be short lived. Trust things to get sticky for the Autobots and they did when two Decepticons, Breakdown and Knockout showed up to preoccupy the Autobots while Soundwave sneaked around the back. Soundwave took the Harvester from the humans and fled, the other 'Cons on his tail. To make things just a mite harder, Miko had been taken in by security.

Optimus had told them that in all likelihoods, Starscream was going to use the Harvester to gather energon as quickly as he could from the planet's otherwise un-minable deposits. The warning was to approach with extreme caution—Starscream wouldn't hesitate to use the Harvester on any of them.

Nightstalker had to chuckle to herself though when Cliffjumper was yipping about going out again, and Optimus had to give the soldier a firm reminder to be careful. Cliffjumper had subdued himself some, but there was no hiding the slightly flippant tone.

Otherwise of other things . . . Bulkhead wanted to bust Miko out of the museum, but they had to rely on Fowler for human laws. Currently though, he was on an "extensive training retreat" or some mess, and was unavailable. In other words, the guy was on vacation.

Thus, after much worried pacing from Bulkhead and a broken piece of equipment for the distraught Ratchet, he muttered, "I wish I'd never taken Miko to the—" His eyes widened. "The Harvester isn't the only thing we found at those ruins!" he suddenly burst.

Both Ratchet and Nightstalker frowned. "I'm sorry?" Ratchet asked.

"Starscream's not dumb!" Bulkhead asserted, eyes narrowing. "No matter what kind of tool he has! He'll take the easy route."

Bulkhead swiftly explained that the Decepticons had found a generous energon reserve in Greece, and the thought had slipped his mind with Breakdown attacking and the Harvester. Simply put, this was where Starscream would gather up all the energon with the energon harvester.

"Bulkhead, I've gotta go with you," Nightstalker said, looking up at the hulking bot. "You'll need help."

Bulkhead shook his head though as the ground bridge opened up. "Not a chance, Nights. You can't fight yet. You need some serious training before you get out in the field. Don't worry. I can handle it—breaking things is what I'm GOOD at."

Turns out, Nightstalker had nothing to worry about—Bulkhead WAS good at breaking things, and he broke the Energon Harvester spectacularly. He was weak from extreme loss of energon, but Ratchet got him back on his feet easily. Agent Fowler finally picked up and Miko got off scot free from the museum, especially when they put the phony Energon Harvester back in the original's place.

When all the Autobots had collected in the silo again, Nightstalker flicked her orange optics to Ratchet and back to Bumblebee and Cliffjumper on the opposite end of the base. "Hey, Bee."

Both mechs looked up, and with a mischievous grin splitting her face, Nightstalker lifted Ratchet's wrench and wagged it at them. Bumblebee's optics dilated wide with amazement; Cliffjumper's jaw literally popped open. Bulkhead's eyes widened. "How did—?"

Cliffjumper had his hand over the former wrecker's mouth so quickly he didn't get a chance to say more. Arcee even lifted a brow at her accomplishment, and Nightstalker ignored whatever face Optimus was making. Peering back at Ratchet, he hadn't taken notice of anything yet or even the fact that she had filched his wrench directly from him. She grinned back at Bumblebee and Cliffjumper.

She made several small gestures in a threat to throw it at Ratchet. Cliffjumper bit back a big smile and pumped his fist several times for a go. Bumblebee gave her a shy thumb up, but his optics were dilated wide open with liveliness. Filled with sudden daring, Nightstalker turned and took aim at the medic's unsuspecting helm.

"This one's for you, Cliff," she cajoled playfully to him.

Winding up, Nightstalker threw the wrench with all her might. The bang echoed out loudly and Ratchet shouted, a hand flashing to his aching head.

The silo erupted with howling laughter at Ratchet's black disdain. Nightstalker clapped a servo over her smile, giggling hard as he narrowed a glare her way.

"I believe that's yours—!" Unable to control it now, Nightstalker fell into uncontrollable laughter and ran out of the main hangar and down the halls before any of Ratchet's wrath could hit her. She heard feet behind her, and realized that she wasn't alone. Glancing over her shoulder, Nightstalker saw Cliffjumper and Bumblebee following with blinding speed as they all darted for safety from Ratchet.

Nightstalker ran straight into her room laughing so hard her sides began to hurt. Whirling around to greet them, she hit smack into Bumblebee's chest. With a small grunt, they both went sprawling across the floor; another surprised yelp and Cliffjumper landed on top of them in a disorganized mess of arms and legs splayed in knots.

Hysterical now, all three of them lied on the floor howling with laughter, optic lubricant streaming down their cheeks. Bumblebee had one of her wings pinned a bit painfully, but Nightstalker didn't care—she was laughing too hard to care. Not to mention she was probably on one of his—unless that was Cliffjumper.

Their silly giggling eventually started to trail off, but Cliffjumper ruined it. "Dear Primus . . . Nights, Bee, did you guys see his FACE?"

Just the thought of it sent them all rolling again, and when Nightstalker could finally catch her breath again, she lightly kicked Cliffjumper for good measure. "Stop it," she giggled. "I was just getting control.

*Nights* she heard Bumblebee whine, *that was me!*

She frowned. "Sorry." She kicked at Cliffjumper again, making purchase with metal again.

*_Nights!_*

Nightstalker groaned in irritation. "Sorry! Jeez, Cliff, where are you?" Nightstalker swindled an arm up and smacked at a red shoulder situated in front of her. "There," she said confidently.

"Ow," Cliffjumper said in mock hurt. There was a wiggle as they all tried to find themselves. "I'm right here. No need to lose me."

It soon occurred to Nightstalker that she was pinned beneath both mechs, but primarily Cliffjumper . . . who was also somehow covering Bumblebee too. But his arm was beneath her . . . ? Nightstalker heaved a groan, trying to arch from beneath them. "Jeez, Cliff, move your fat aft!"

"Make me."

Nightstalker's optics blinked wide, and she narrowed them at his petulant tone. "Cliff, get off."

"Na-na-na-boo-boo," he teased, poking his glossia out at her. "Nightstalker can't move me!"

"Don't tempt me," she muttered, squirming more beneath the two mechs.

"I'd like to see you try," Cliffjumper jeered, blue optics sending the challenge to her.

Before Nightstalker could think to act, a sudden thrust removed the pressure from her pinned wing and Cliffjumper yelped when he was suddenly thrown off. Bumblebee tinkled with laughter, helping Nightstalker sit up. *See? She barely had to do anything at all!*

Cliffjumper growled playfully, spreading his hands. "Why you little—" With a roar, he leapt at Bumblebee. Nightstalker squeaked, lunging away when Cliffjumper tackled him to the floor and began to wrestle, but she cried out, "Stop! Stop it! You'll spill the energon!"

"Energon?"

*Energon?*

Both mechs stopped immediately, optics pinning to the two cubes on Nightstalker's berth. Both leapt up with hoots of triumph, slapping Nightstalker's slim shoulders and grinning at her.

Bumblebee plopped down first with a happy croon. *Nights, you are amazing!* He took a cube for himself while she took the other.

Cliffjumper's optics popped. "What? Where's mine?"

Nightstalker shrugged, swirling the drink in his face. "Get your own. This was supposed to be a two-bot party until you crashed it." She grinned at his ruffled feathers.

"No fair!" he burst, sitting next to her with a frown. "I can't sneak or steal worth a spark plug. Can't you just get me one if you're so good?"

She poked her tongue out at him. "Make me."

He narrowed his eyes before giving it up and rolling them in exasperation.

*Where did you learn to take things like that?* Bumblebee asked her. *Did Ratchet even notice?*

Nightstalker grinned, sitting next to him and gripping the other cube. "When Fli-Ni and I were on Kaon he taught me all I needed to know about stealing things. I could take money from full grown mechs and they'd never know it!"

Cliffjumper barked with laughter. "Forget _where_ you learned it, _how_ did you manage to take his wrench and steal energon both?"

Nightstalker grinned and took a swig of the energon, lounging back comfortably.

"And that," she clarified with a smug smirk, "is a trade secret."


	16. Not Airachnid

Things settled back into a pattern around the base, but it wasn't one that Nightstalker had anticipated.

Cliffjumper had taken it upon himself to begin to teach Nightstalker how to defend herself. He said—no lie—"The way you tried to fight those Decepticons was pathetic! Didn't anyone teach you anything? You need some major help or you'll end up in the scrap heap so fast I won't realize you're gone!"

Needless to say, Nightstalker wasn't thrilled with his flippant words.

Either way, her training began accompanied by Bumblebee so cute and eager to help with anything he could, but there wasn't much done at first. Cliffjumper literally had her take her gun and do some target practice.

Without elaborating too much on her failure . . . Nightstalker wasn't good at target practice.

And so, there finally came the day where Cliffjumper pulled in the big guns.

Arcee.

"C'mon, Nights," he said with a grin, pulling her by her arm. "Let's go practice some! I want to see you getting scrappy."

Bumblebee looked up with a whir as Arcee and Jack pulled into the base. *Really?* He looked back to the game he was playing with Raf, giving a soft whir. *Hey, do you mind? I want to help train Nights*

"Don't worry about it, Bee!" Cliffjumper said, grinning at Arcee. Nightstalker spark skipped a beat. "Arcee can help us out!"

The femme's gaze flattened. "Not a chance."

"Aww, c'mon, Arcee!" he said cheekily, grabbing her arm when she tried to stalk away. "She can't shoot worth a dime so I've taught her some hand-to-hand combat, and she needs someone her size to practice with. You know? A little femme-on-femme action!" He laughed heartily, but Arcee scowled, jerking her arm away.

"Look, I don't want to have anything to do with—"

"Lighten up, Arcee!" Cliffjumper said, draping an arm around her shoulders. "It's just this one practice—"

"And this one will turn into many," Arcee said, pushing him away again.

Cliffjumper turned on a pout face. "But Arcee . . ." He didn't finish the thought, but solemnly grasped his left arm and gave her a meaningful look.

She narrowed her eyes. "I hate it when you pull that card."

A triumphant grin split his face open, and he winked at Nightstalker. "Ta da! Now, c'mon, let's get busy!"

Nightstalker had no choice but to follow, but her energon tanks churned uncomfortably. "Um . . . Cliff . . ." she murmured quietly, Arcee stalking down the halls at a much faster rate than they were since she pulled against him. "Cliffjumper, I—I don't know if this is such a good idea . . ."

"Sure it is," he said flippantly, tugging her along. "Stop squirming and let's go. You do want to get stronger, right?"

Her wings began to flutter anxiously at the sight of Arcee's clenched hands. "Cliff," she whispered frantically, "you KNOW Arcee doesn't like me."

Cliffjumper threw her a lop-sided smile. "Yeah. But you two have got to get over this hump some day and I can't get her to interact with you in any other way. And what better way to get over stuff and duke it out a little?"

"She'll maul me!" Nightstalker hissed, squirming away again.

Cliffjumper reaffirmed his grip on her, pulling her down the silo halls. "Calm it down, Nights, it's just a practice—"

"If she puts my head on a stick—"

"I'll be there watching, so don't worry, I'm not going to let her do any sorts of permanent damage."

Nightstalker bit her lip nervously, feeling her stomach reeling with stress over what could possibly happen next. Instead, working herself into a nervous wreck, Nightstalker met in the back practice room with the one bot she was sure would still rip her spark out.

Arcee glared at her from across the room, but Cliffjumper ignored it as he came between them. "Remember," he said. "Speed and damage. You gotta be quick—possibly a bit quicker than you usually are. Let instinct teach you. Anywhere you hit her, she's gonna lean in that direction to protect herself. Kay? Nights?"

She jumped when he snapped in her face, snapping her out of a brutal daydream of what Arcee was going to do to her. He smirked a little. "Jeez, calm down. Focus. All right?"

Nightstalker nodded mechanically, orange optics nervously flicking back up to Arcee. The blue femme flexed her fingers.

"Hit early. I know you're timid but suck it up and act like you're Bulkhead in a swarm of scraplets. Attack first and try to get the upper hand." Nightstalker nodded, just barely managing to control the rising panic in her optics. It seemed Cliffjumper saw it because he arched a brow at her. "NO flailing."

"O-okay," she stuttered, wings fluttering like mad.

"Remember some of the wrist locks I taught you? Keep an eye out for a good chance to take advantage of that. Use bigger body parts like your palm or foot to hit small areas like her nose or eyes so that you've got lots of force in a small area to do lots of damage. Conversely, small weapon big target—if you're gonna hit her stomach, use something more like a knuckle punch. Got it?"

"Sure . . ."

"I don't hear any confidence."

Nightstalker huffed out a breath, wrinkling her nose at him. "I don't know how I feel about my own execution . . ."

Cliffjumper rolled his eyes and backed up. He arched an eyebrow at Arcee. "Take it easy on her," he said to her. "Just kinda guide her through the motions and keep it slow so she can pick up on it." His optics twinkled as he stood to the side. "Now, let's see something!"

Arcee didn't move from her position, and even though her stomach churned, Nightstalker forced herself to push it away and instead threw herself into an attack.

She drove her fist forward for Arcee's face, but was easily caught at the wrist. A slight panic attack struck hard and Nightstalker and she threw her other fist, but that one was caught easily. Her optics widened and dilated in pain when Arcee bent her wrists back until a painful point and shoved her away. Nightstalker staggered back, dread creeping in.

Arcee hadn't even blinked.

"Quicker," Cliffjumper called out. "Catch her by surprise if you can."

Nightstalker threw herself back into the practice spar, feinting this time before attacking. Arcee anticipated her easily, knocking her back and then, Nightstalker felt every ounce of breath expelled from her body when something hard hit her chest. She sprawled back on the ground, gasping for breath.

"Jeez, Arcee, I said take it easy!"

Arcee scoffed, tossing her head. "Why should I? No Decepticon is going to take it easy, so she shouldn't be coddled in her training. If Ironhide were training her, he wouldn't."

Nightstalker gulped in some needed air as she sat up, chest plates throbbing, and she saw Cliffjumper frowning. "Well . . . I don't know. Look at her. I think even Ironhide would find somewhere in him to take pity."

"Then Kup wouldn't."

Cliffjumper cringed. "Well . . . I guess not . . ." He looked at her again though, and his frown wrinkled more.

Obviously, he was tongue tied over what to do now. Arcee sent a sneering glance to Nightstalker. "Well, try again."

Her contemptuous tone of voice sent crackles of disdain and fear through Nightstalker.

_There's no way I can do this._

Instead, Nightstalker attacked again. Three more times she failed, getting knocked in the side to stagger away; grabbed by the neck and shoved to the floor; shouldered so hard she crashed to the ground.

By this time, Nightstalker was gasping for breath, Cliffjumper saying that Arcee should back it off some, and this time there was steel in his voice.

She couldn't do this. She wasn't strong enough, and Arcee was clearly taking pleasure in humiliating her and hurting her. Sucking up a bit of energon from her lips, Nightstalker looked up at Arcee, and cold blue optics blinked down at her with contempt.

She had been this close to giving up, but suddenly, she thought again.

Nightstalker lunged forward so quickly it surprised Arcee, and she slammed her fist into Arcee's cheek, making the bot grunt and lean away. Taking initiative for once, Nightstalker attacked again, following her as she punched Arcee's stomach plates next, thrusting her knuckles into it like Cliffjumper had taught her. She was rewarded with a grunt from the opposing femme, but her success was short lived. Going for the next closest place as Arcee instinctively hunched over her stomach, Nightstalker went for her neck, but a steely grip latched to her.

Nightstalker cried out when Arcee wrenched her arm back, and for one terrifying instant she was sure Arcee would break her arm. Instead she was met with a knee to the gut, an uppercut to the face, and a two-handed chop across the back. Nightstalker grunted low, skidding across the floor, but she wasn't about to let Arcee think she had beaten her again. Ignoring the pulsing pain, Nightstalker flipped her way into a crouch, bearing her teeth towards Arcee.

If Cliffjumper said anything, she didn't hear it now. Rushing forward again, Nightstalker threw punches as fast and furious as she could, watching the way Arcee's hips turned to help see where she was moving next. However, Arcee disposed of her quickly again, back-handing her, kneeing her gut again, twisting her arms around before picking her up and throwing her across the room again. Nightstalker hit the ground hard on her sensitive wings and cried out, curling up into a fetal position to protect herself from the incensed Autobot.

"Arcee, that's enough."

That commanding voice was not Cliffjumper's. Nightstalker looked up to see Optimus entering the room, blue optics taking in the latest of their last scrap. Nightstalker wiped her lips, staggering up to her feet as she heard Cliffjumper hissing, "I said take it easy! There was no need to beat on her like that!"

"She deserved it!" she heard Arcee snarl venomously back, fists clenched as she glared right back at Cliffjumper. She threw a hand out to Nightstalker. "She deserved every last bit of that, and more, and you know it!"

Cliffjumper's hand clamped down on Arcee's arm. "_No_," he stressed tightly, "I've already forgiven her for that. You need to put it behind you."

"You're asking me—"

"I AM NOT AIRACHNID!"

The words reverberated off the walls of the training room, and Arcee flinched back like she had been struck by lightning. Her blue optics widened at Nightstalker.

Dead silence coated the room. Her hands were clenched. Her wings were perked straight and stiff, and her orange optics glazed over with hurt.

Astounded that she had even taken the stand, Nightstalker's lips quivered the next time she tried to open her mouth. However, she set her jaw, and gritted the words out again.

"_I. Am. Not. Airachnid."_

Arcee jolted back again, eyes wide as if she was just now looking at her and seeing her for who she was.

_"I am not Airachnid!"_ Nightstalker shouted again, wanting to grill it into the femme's body so she'd never forget. Arcee recoiled, staggering several steps back. "I am not, nor ever have been, nor ever will be Airachnid!" She felt Optimus's hand rest on her shoulder to calm her, but his touch was like the fire that had licked over Fli-Ni's death bed. Nightstalker wrenched away with blazing eyes before running from the room, leaving them behind.

She darted to her room, slammed the door shut, and stayed there, rocking on her berth, guilt festering and courage plucking, the will to stand up for herself hardening.

* * *

><p>It took a bit for Nightstalker to calm herself and leave her room. By then, she made it back to the missile silo just as Arcee did, walking in from opposite ends. The blue femme gave her a carefully veiled look before looking to Raf and Miko playing a racing game, Bulkhead watching.<p>

"Anyone seen Jack?"

The game stopped so quickly there was no doubting the guilty looks Miko and Raf gave each other.

"Not since . . . we last saw him!"

Nightstalker passed her optics over the silo. Where was Ratchet? She could only assume he had gone to the back . . . she briefly wondered what for.

Arcee narrowed her optics. "They're racing, aren't they?"

"Just this once," Raf squeaked, and Nightstalker bypassed wherever Optimus, Ratchet, and Cliffjumper were. Wasn't racing against the rules? Had to be why Arcee was so pissed.

"Did you know about this?" she growled at Bulkhead.

The bot was bigger, but a whole lot more intimidated. "No." He paused. "Maybe." He stalled again before admitting, "A little."

Arcee heaved an irritated sigh just as a call back to base came up, and Nightstalker heard Bumblebee over the comm. stating that he was being chased by—

By Knockout.

Nightstalker's spark did a little flip. The last time she had seen Knockout was, what, over a year ago? She carried fond memories of the vain medical bot, conceited as he was and as driven as he had been to get her to his berth. Still, he had backed off pretty readily when Nightstalker stated she was Megatron's.

However, the reason she looked on him so highly was because he had been the mech that had whisked her from the devastation of Kaon, the bot who had taken her directly to Megatron and asked if she could live.

Then again, she owed Megatron more because he had let her live.

Still, the plan was to keep it from Optimus and Ratchet—and Cliffjumper. Nightstalker didn't even get the chance to scoff at this before Arcee leveled a furious glare at her.

"And don't you say a word."

So, while she and Bulkhead went gallivanting after Bumblebee, Nightstalker sat in the base with Miko and Raf. They eventually started to play again, and Nightstalker politely declined to have a turn. Still, time slowly ticked by, and nervousness began to plague the two kids.

They abandoned the video game and soon hovered over the computer. "They should have called by now," Raf said tensely, sick with worry over his bot and the rest of them. "You think Bumblebee's okay?"

"Don't worry, Raf," Miko said to him. Nightstalker stood on her toes to get a better look at the computer screen. "Bulkhead won't let anything happen to Jack OR Bee."

Nightstalker froze hearing heavy steps. Her wings instinctively perked up and her metal crawled as she turned around to see Optimus walking into the room, looking around for his clearly missing bots. The two kids were arguing in undertones, but that stopped short when Optimus stood directly in front of them. Nightstalker's head craned back to accommodate for his sheer size.

"Raf, Miko, Nightstalker," he questioned with that so-kind voice that Nightstalker absolutely despised. "Do either of you know where the others have gone?"

Miko jumped into a lie immediately, but it was clearly an act, stiff and unbelievable. "Why no, sir. We do not know."

"Miko is correct," Raf repeated nervously. "We do not know."

Nightstalker groaned on the inside. Neither were making eye contact, and Raf's voice broke and squeaked when he lied.

"Why would we know?"

Even Miko's voice squeaked. Nightstalker's gut churned because Optimus clearly didn't believe them, a thoughtful sound grumbling from his chest and a brow arching. He looked to her, and her insides froze.

"Scrap . . ."

Nightstalker heard herself spilling the beans. Things led up as follows: Ratchet bridged Optimus out, Cliffjumper whined that he didn't get to go and missed out on all the fun, Ratchet hit Cliffjumper with a wrench again, and Nightstalker slipped from the room to avoid blame.

All in all, everything turned out all right again with a reprimand from Optimus.

So, time slowly passed, the next week was highly uneventful as well. Cliffjumper and Bumblebee helped train her, and Bulkhead was willing to act as Nightstalker's punching bag. Miko always got a kick out of the training sessions. Most notably though, was Arcee's cold indifference turned from hateful to a wary curiosity. If anything, she didn't treat Nightstalker like the scum of the world anymore, and Nightstalker found it much easier to open up with her friends.

Arcee was called off to check out a sub-terrain energon deposit that Ratchet had detected. She had taken Jack with her to check it out since he had wanted a joy-ride, and so this left them all in the back watching Nightstalker's latest training session, minus Ratchet and Optimus.

Ratchet, with all the work he worked on, and Optimus . . . with wherever Optimus went. Nightstalker wasn't sure, but she didn't really care—it was nice to get him out of her sights when all she wanted to do was sink her claws in him.

"Faster, Nights! Harder! C'mon, there's some type of strength in you somewhere!"

Nightstalker huffed at Cliffjumper, struggling to just hold her own against Bumblebee who was yet still taking it easy on her. His hits weren't that fast or that hard, but it was still too good for Nightstalker. Clenching her jaw, Nightstalker grunted when Bumblebee's fist hit her gut.

She backed away to catch her breath a moment and send a scathing glance Cliffjumper's way. "Shut it up, already, I get it! You've said it a million times!"

He laughed. "And I'll keep saying it until you get it right!"

Nightstalker snorted in irritation and instead focused her optics on Bumblebee. He wagged his fingers in the "come on" position. *Let's see something wild, Nights!*

Nightstalker snorted again—as if she could possibly do that. However, her optics were sidetracked by the sight of a hulk of red and blue watching idly from the doorway.

Her spark hardened at the sight of Optimus. Bottled up anger frizzed up again until it threatened to blow, and Nightstalker's gaze flattened as she turned back to Bumblebee. Sensing a change overcoming her, Bumblebee gave a curious whir before following her into the practice battle again.

Hitting hard and swift, Nightstalker finally did so with enough vigor that even Cliffjumper didn't harp at her. Taking a daring leap, Nightstalker tried to perform the roundhouse kick she had been practicing.

It looked pretty, and it probably would have worked if Bumblebee hadn't grabbed her foot before it met his face. *Nice try!* he chirped cheerily, swinging her around she was so light-weight. Nightstalker used her momentum, curving in and grabbing his waist before he could throw her away. Bumblebee gave a startled cry, and Nightstalker gripped his body tight with her hands. Swinging her legs around, Nightstalker latched the left around Bumblebee's right arm, the back of her knee holding the arm prisoner by the inside of the elbow. Then, swinging up the right leg, she wrapped it around the front of Bumblebee's neck. He yelped again, and before he could use his free left hand to do anything, Nightstalker grabbed it and held it back with both hands, her front draped across his back.

Bumblebee staggered wildly for several seconds, but Cliffjumper cut in with a shout of, "Whoa! WHOA! Hold it still, both of you!"

Nightstalker and Bumblebee froze as well as they could, chests expanding and contracting with every deep breath. Nightstalker watched an upside-down Cliffjumper approach, optics crinkling in shocked admission.

"_Nights . . . _how the _hell_ did you manage to get yourself in that position?"

Nightstalker looked up at Bumblebee. Her right leg was wrapped around the front of his neck, and her left leg was wrapped around his right arm to hold it back. Her head was currently at his waist, and she literally held on to his left arm for balance.

"Um . . ."

Cliffjumper circled them, inspecting the way her body had so readily contorted. He poked at the leg around Bumblebee's neck. "Can you always do this? Is it that easy? Optimus, look at this! This is ridiculous!"

She heard Optimus make a thoughtful sound, and Cliffjumper laughed again. "Man, what Bulkhead wouldn't give for an ounce of how flexible you are . . ."

Craning her head the other way, Nightstalker saw Bulkhead's optics popping out of his head, Miko and Raf mimicked pictures of him. "How is that . . . even possible?" he managed to stutter out.

"Um . . ." She would seriously, SERIOUSLY never tell them how she was this flexible.

*Nights, you've been holding out on us!* Bumblebee chirped happily. *I bet that kind of flexibility is good for things*

"Seriously," Cliffjumper echoed, shaking his head in disbelief at her twisted body. "Can you get down?"

Nightstalker immediately flipped lithely off of Bumblebee, fluttering her wings a bit nervously. "Um . . . Uh . . ."

Cliffjumper grinned, elbowing her. "Nights, I think we've got to rethink your battling skills! Imagine what you could do if you can dodge with that kind of flexibility! And those electric whips—you'd be great in combat with some practice—" He cut off, holding up a finger as he intercepted what clearly had to be a call from Ratchet since he was the only one not in the room. His smiling face disappeared.

"She what?"

Nightstalker was sure that if Cliffjumper had been human his face would have turned three shades of colors before bleaching white. "Why can't you contact her, Doc?" he asked tightly, fists clenching and unclenching at his side. Nightstalker began to flutter her wings nervously when Cliffjumper's lips thinned.

"I'm coming to the front."

Optimus stepped forward, brows knitting. "Cliffjumper, what is the problem?"

"Arcee," he said, blue optics tightening in worry. "Ratchet said her location and comm. link were compromised, and he can't find her or get a hold of her. That was ten minutes ago."

Nightstalker found her wooden legs walking after Cliffjumper who was all but jogging from the room he was walking so fast. Arcee? And Jack? Her energon tanks curdled. They could be in trouble.

After fighting tooth and nail with Ratchet and Optimus, Cliffjumper finally got permission to check her last coordinates and a perimeter of 100 meters to see if he could find either her or Jack, but was unsuccessful. Inadvertently, Cliffjumper broke a piece of Ratchet's equipment he was so frustrated, causing the stressed medic to bark at him and Cliffjumper to lash back.

If not for Optimus, Nightstalker was sure they would have come to blows.

Finally, when Nightstalker was sure the tension in the silo would make the entire place rupture, there was a patch through to the base.

"Ratchet? Requesting ground bridge."

Cliffjumper jolted. "Arcee?"

There was a palpable pause because she clearly hadn't heard him since he hadn't contacted her. He rushed up to the screen where the beeping blip represented her life form.

"Need to get my partner far away from any oversized insects."

Her tone of voice was light, but weary. Cliffjumper's hand flashed to his comm. link. "Arcee! What happened? Are you all right?"

Nightstalker watched his tense back as he stiffly listened to a brief explanation. "Ratchet's sending the ground bridge," he finally said. His hand kneaded the back of his neck. "See you soon."

Nightstalker backed into the designated corner she had taken when she first came into the ranks of the Autobots. The ground bridge blasted open, and Jack came through first, swatting at a nearly invisible bug. Then, Arcee came in stiffly.

Cliffjumper's blue optics widened in horror. "Arcee—"

He rushed to her, wrapping an arm around her supportively. She winced slightly at his gentle touch. Nightstalker's optics widened as she took in Arcee's exhausted form that was covered in silky webbing. The intensely strong substance locked her back struts tightly, and there were telltale gouges along her body that leaked energon.

She had clearly burned a lot of energon. That was apparent because she hobbled along on weak ankles with the help of Cliffjumper until he gently scooped her up into his arms, his shoulders ridged with concern.

"Cliff, don't, I'm—"

"Don't give me that slag, Arcee. Just let me help."

Nightstalker's lips twisted up a little at his heartfelt reprimand as he gently sat her down on the edge of the medical berth. Ratchet shooed Cliffjumper away much to the mech's anger, a deep scowl etching its way across his face. Nightstalker fled from the room, going to the back to collect the energon cube Arcee was desperately in need of.

Ratchet was still busy peeling Airachnid's webbing from her body when Nightstalker returned. The time was getting late, and Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Miko, and Raf all said their goodbyes—even Jack. Ratchet deemed that Arcee had strained her engines too badly to be driving that kind of distance yet.

Turns out, she had forced herself to drive straight through webbing thick enough to cripple even the strongest of bots.

When Ratchet quite distinctly moved away from Arcee's upper body to work on her legs, Nightstalker figured it was okay to give Arcee the energon cube. She passed it to her, but before she could retreat, Arcee's hand snapped around her wrist. Nightstalker jumped.

"I—" Arcee looked up to her with a curious mix of sorrow, understanding, and fear. "I'm sorry. You—" She dropped her head and hand away, suppressing a shiver. "You're nothing like Airachnid."

"Um . . ." Nightstalker backed uncertainly away, wings fluttering a little. "Thank you," she said softly, accepting the meek apology.

They waited a while longer, and Arcee explained briefly to Optimus what had happened, and also how proud she was of Jack. Optimus asked how she was, but she opted not to answer.

Nightstalker thought of her former mentor. Arcee was either too afraid to answer, or chose not to answer because she knew she would be lying, and Nightstalker had experienced firsthand that you couldn't lie to Optimus.

When finally, _finally_ Ratchet said that Arcee should go get a good recharge, Cliffjumper swooped in and scooped her up close to his chest, hugging her gently but possessively. Arcee's arms wrapped around him, holding him close as well. Her fingers tightened into his back, and only then did Nightstalker get a small ray of light that Arcee's expedition today had disturbed her more than she wanted to admit.

After all, Arcee leaned upon no one.

Cliffjumper dropped comforting kisses on the top of her helm, and his blue optics looked up, drilling into Nightstalker's. Nightstalker felt her orange optics widen, and inadvertently, at the sheer passions embroiled deep in his eyes, she took a step back. Keeping eye contact with her, Cliffjumper placed several absent kisses on Arcee's head, and it took Nightstalker several moments more to realize that Cliffjumper was silently saying that he understood Arcee better for what Nightstalker had made him go through in the torture chamber. If anything, Nightstalker had heightened the bond between them, and . . . he was saying something else as well. Then Cliffjumper's arms tightened on Arcee. He lifted her up into his arms, and began to walk out of the silo.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Ratchet said quickly, eyeing them both distrustfully.

"Out," Cliffjumper said shortly, ignoring the disapproval of Ratchet. "I doubt you'd want to hear us."

It took Nightstalker the breath of a moment to understand.

"No you don't," Ratchet repeated, taking several steps to him. "She's not ready for that kind of strenuous exercise yet—"

"Shut it, Doc," Cliffjumper said with the rare bite of a snarl hidden beneath. He turned around enough to glare at the medical bot. "I'll do _all_ the work gently."

A hitch sounded out from Cliffjumper's systems when Arcee leaned up and nibbled on some of the exposed wires in his neck. He sucked in a quick breath before bunching her up closer and striding quickly from the silo.

Nightstalker bypassed Optimus and Ratchet for sleep. Still, she lied on her berth for a long time, contemplating Arcee's forgiveness. It was nice. She felt better, in fact, and she was getting pretty eager to get to know her. But Cliffjumper . . . He had hidden something in those eyes of his. Nightstalker couldn't distinguish it then or now, and she could only wonder until finally she fell into a recharge.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Over the hump with Arcee, Nightstalker gaining confidence . . .**

**Next episode I'll be working with is Sick Mind. :D**

**Also, the meaningful gesture Cliffjumper used to get Arcee to help train Nightstalker when he grabbed his arm? When they both first crash landed on Earth, Starscream attacked them, blowing off Arcee's arm, thus Cliffjumper had to protect her, thus, bringing it up when he wants her to do something. True story, read it on the Transformers Wiki.**


	17. A Brush of the Past

Temptation . . . they say you could resist everything but temptation.

Nightstalker stood, looking almost unseeing at Optimus incapacitated on Ratchet's medical berth, blue optics flickering as the effects of the Cybonic Plague began to waste his body away. She swallowed. If she ever killed Optimus and got out of this alive, she would have to thank Megatron.

Nightstalker nearly yelped when Cliffjumper laid his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, calm it down, Nights, Boss bot's gonna be okay." He lightly punched her shoulder in reassurance, and she quickly turned away, nervously fluttering her wings. If he only knew where her mind really was!

"Isn't there a cure?" Nightstalker heard Raf ask.

She pressed her lips together when Optimus choked out that there was none. Still, Nightstalker found herself impressed with the Jack as he persisted, "Would Megatron create a disease without a cure? I mean, what if he caught it by accident?"

"It's not like we can ask Megatron, Jack," Bulkhead reminded him. Nightstalker cringed at, "He's pushing lug-nuts."

Okay, so maybe she was a bit demented in the mind, but Nightstalker had nothing against Megatron. He had always treated her well—and maybe it was just because she had been his berth partner—but it kinda stung a little to know that he was dead.

"But . . ." Ratchet said slowly, an idea forming in his optics, "we might be able to access the Decepticon database."

Nightstalker finally tore her hungry eyes away from Optimus to stare at Ratchet.

"For the moment, we still have a fix on their warship's location."

Arcee nodded strictly. "Bumblebee, come with."

Cliffjumper jumped forward. "What? C'mon, Arcee, take me!"

She pursed her lips and shook her head. "Cliffjumper, you and I both know that you can't sneak to save your own li—"

Nightstalker took a step back when Arcee's eyes fixated themselves on her. Nightstalker blinked. Arcee pointed and ordered, "Nightstalker, you're with us."

There was a beat of silence before Cliffjumper began to sputter. "W-What? Are you crazy, Arcee? We've barely got a hand on her training yet!"

"She doesn't have to fight," Arcee said brusquely, "she just has to guide us." Nightstalker felt her jaw popping in shock. "It's about time we gave her a small taste of the field, and this is perfect—she can help us navigate us right where we need to go."

Nightstalker could have inwardly smacked herself. That was right! She cast a lustful glance to Optimus, feeling a festering hole eat its way into her.

Another time, Autobot scum.

Bumblebee patted her shoulder supportively. *It'll be okay, Nights. Optimus is strong. And don't worry, you'll do great. The first mission is always the most nervous, but also the most fun*

Nightstalker gave a nervous shrug as Ratchet prepared the ground bridge. "I'll take your word for it . . ." she muttered.

Her breathing hitched when Ratchet opened the ground bridge and they leapt through. Nightstalker found herself tiptoeing through to the other side to the all-too-familiar halls.

The bridge closed. Arcee gave a strict nod of her head, muttering into the empty halls. "Let's start with the lab. Nightstalker?"

Nightstalker crept forward, wings twitching nervously. She could feel a prickle up her spine, like Soundwave's emotionless mask was staring right at them.

"This way," she whispered, quickly moving forward. Leading both Bumblebee and Arcee down the halls, all three of them were forced to hide when Knockout sauntered from the lab, but he bypassed without care. Arcee was in the room even before Nightstalker could say, "There it is."

She swallowed uncomfortably as Arcee began to check through the database, scanning and rescanning, and she could hear the femme arguing with Ratchet is low undertones. Clearly, the information wasn't there.

*Nights?*

Nightstalker tiptoed over to Bumblebee and the door he was looking through. "What is it?" she whispered quietly.

His hand clamped down on her shoulder, and a heavy buzz echoed from his voice box. *Arcee, you need to come see this*

Arcee whipped around, furious that the cure wasn't in the system. "_What is it?_" she hissed impatiently. She stalked over, and when she got a glimpse inside, she gasped. The doors whizzed open, and Nightstalker's spark rerouted itself.

Megatron.

Nightstalker felt her wings perking stiffly. Megatron—he was—right there—so much life support . . . He was completely under, and it was clear a recent buffing job had been done on him to make him look presentable.

Even as Bumblebee and Arcee moved in warily, guns pointing, Nightstalker found herself rooted to the spot. Dear Primus—that was her berth mate! The one she had shared herself with for millennia! An unconscious flop of her spark caused her breath to finally catch and begin to cycle again.

That was when she focused in on Arcee's gun trained at him, and she realized belatedly that they were Autobots—they would kill him!

". . . hooked up to life support. Time to finish this once and for all."

Nightstalker's spark jumped. "Wait!" she cried out to Arcee.

The femme barely twitched. "Give me one good reason," she said coldly. "Fast."

Nightstalker found her glossia twisted. What, indeed? That she just wanted to pay a final homage to Megatron because he had treated her nicer as berth mate, and that she owed her life to him for saving her from Kaon? Before she could even begin to try to explain, a shocked looked overcame Arcee's face. Her gun stopped its angry whine.

"What are you talking about?" she said into her communicator, and that was when Nightstalker realized that she hadn't been listening to her at all.

Bumblebee had, however. He blinked his wide blue optics at her. *Nights?*

She scrambled wildly for the excuse. "W-well," she whispered uncertainly, "if there's a formula, Megatron has to know it, right?" Right? It sounded good to her audio receptors.

Clearly, it sounded good to Bumblebee too. *Nights, that's right!* he commended her, and a furiously unworthy blush covered her cheeks.

It seemed that was what Ratchet was telling Arcee. "Enter Megatron's brain?" she gaped out loud, uncaring of her rising voice. "Ratchet, are you out of your fragging mind?"

A cortical-psychic patch was what it was, Nightstalker was worried sick when Bumblebee volunteered, saying, *I'll do it.*

"Bumblebee, no!" Nightstalker jumped in quickly, wings fluttering like mad. "You can't do it! Let—let me!" Dear Primus, those were the first words off her lips? Nightstalker swallowed uncertainly, trying to talk her way through two amazed faces. "I—I mean—I used to be a Decepticon. I—I know . . . him pretty well . . ." Primus knew she could never admit being his berth mate, they'd cast her out for sure . . . "Please, Bee, trust me, I don't want you to get hurt!"

He gave her a quick hug and a supportive chirp. *I'll be okay, Nights. I'm a scout—finding things is what I'm good at. I'll be okay. I promise*

Nightstalker forced a stiff nod before Arcee hooked him up to Megatron, concealed down in a crevice of the ship. Nightstalker knelt with Bumblebee, holding his hands. Oddly, he seemed to be the one doing most of the comforting. Arcee came back down with the end that would hook Bumblebee to Megatron, and Nightstalker watched him give a positive thumbs up.

Arcee nodded. "Ratchet, we're ready."

Nightstalker's throat bobbed when Arcee hooked him up. Bumblebee's big optics watched Nightstalker until the procedure took over and his optics offlined.

So, they sat. Nightstalker fluttered her wings nervously in their secluded compound, looking through the crack at Megatron. Dear Primus, he was right there. _Right there._ It was maddening to be that close and see him on life support. How long had he been like that? Endless questions poured through Nightstalker's mind until she shrank back, optics nervously flitting.

"Arcee?" she whispered so softly she barely heard herself. The brave femme looked towards her. Nightstalker wet her lips and continued. "I—I don't know . . . how we managed to get this far."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Soundwave." Arcee's optics widened. Nightstalker nodded. "I don't understand . . . how he didn't see us. If he doesn't see everything on this ship with his own eyes, his pet Laserbeak sees the rest. Why would he allow us in . . . ? And allow us to tamper with Megatron . . ."

Arcee's jaw clenched reflexively as she cast an anxious glance to Bumblebee. "I don't know," she muttered. "But we'll take the opening we've got."

"He can probably hear us right now . . ." Nightstalker's whisper trailed off. Honestly, Soundwave rather terrified her. He was silent, dark, and empty on the inside. He was loyal to the point of having no will of his own, and as a shuck of a transformer, and lethal skills of a gladiator to top it all off. He never paid her heed, and as she trembled with suppressed fear, Nightstalker hoped to keep herself off his radar.

They sat anxiously, each passing minute like a passing hour. Nightstalker carefully regulated her breathing, counting the time she took to take her breaths to keep them steady as well as keep herself occupied. She even kept the time like this, counting the number of breaths she would take in a minute like clockwork.

Both she and Arcee jerked when the door to the infirmary opened.

"Knockout, if you would be so kind as to supply your expert medical opinion to Soundwave for the historical record."

Nightstalker's spark leapt sky high. Starscream, Knockout, and Soundwave all congregated in the room, meeting at their leader's side. She barely felt Arcee's presence beside her, and she prayed that Soundwave would overlook them and the wiring that led down to their hiding place.

Knockout gave a sigh. "Simply put, unaided, Megatron could remain in this deathless slumber . . . forever."

Nightstalker barely breathed. Her chest tightened. That was it? They were . . .

"Our master would not have wanted to be seen in this way," Starscream said with extravagant sadness. "To stand idly by while he remains captive in his own body. It's not just."

Nightstalker's wings fluttered madly when Soundwave took several steps forward, pointing one slender finger towards Megatron's spiking brain waves. Then, it suddenly occurred to Nightstalker—they were debating on taking him off life support and just letting him—him—!

"Brain wave activity," Knockout stated blankly, with disinterest. "Not evidence of consciousness, but merely of an endless dream of which Megatron may never wake."

"Soundwave," Starscream said sadly, "we must face reality. Megatron is lost to us."

"The only honorable option," Knockout added, "would be to show him mercy."

"A simple throw of the switch."

"Quick. Painless. Compassionate."

Her spark rate quickened while Arcee crouched back down to whisper to Ratchet again. They—they couldn't just let him go! Soundwave would never allow it! Nightstalker felt her wings tensing up. She couldn't let them do that . . . She—she owed him a debt. She owed him her life. A life for a life . . . Her debt would be repaid.

Then, another reality hit her like a ton of bricks—Bumblebee was still attached to his mind! If they pulled the plug on Megatron, they'd lose Bumblebee!

A fit panic started in Nightstalker's veins. She couldn't lose another brother, not another one—!

"Soundwave," Starscream said, "do I take your silence to mean you concur with Knockout's medical expertise?" Nightstalker held her breath when Soundwave said nothing. He didn't move at all, and she felt herself crouching on her peds, ready to intervene when Starscream grabbed the life support. "Speak now, or forever hold your peace." Not while she still breathed . . . not while her spark still beat . . . She would repay her debt and save Bumblebee if it were the last thing she ever lived to do!

"Going . . ."

Soundwave still didn't move, and Arcee realized the gravity of the situation as well. She leveled her laser towards Starscream, and Nightstalker rocked back more, prepared to shoot out of their hiding place.

"Going . . ."

Soundwave finally moved, lifting that slim finger to point towards Megatron again. Behind Megatron. Towards the—

Both Arcee and Nightstalker dropped back into their hiding place when Soundwave spotted the wire. Nightstalker gave Arcee a quiet and furious gesture, hissing so quiet she barely heard herself, "He misses nothing!"

Nightstalker backed into their hiding place with Arcee so they would be farther from sight. Starscream picked up the extra wire with a bewildered expression, and then he disappeared from sight as Nightstalker pressed herself against the wall near the still slumped Bumblebee locked in a quartical psychic patch.

"C'mon, c'mon . . ." Arcee whispered desperately to him. There was no way the three of them could take all three of those—they could take out Knockout if he were alone, they may be able to gang-bang Starscream and get away with it . . . Nightstalker shuddered. She was absolutely sure Soundwave could trash all three of them easily if he so chose.

Arcee jolted. "They've got it!" she burst in an undertone, and she quickly removed the patch from Bumblebee.

Nightstalker patted his face when his body slowly brought itself out of stasis. Arcee whirled around and pointed her gun automatically when Starscream's light footsteps sounded near them.

Bumblebee's optics began to flicker back on. "Ratchet!" Nightstalker hissed into the comm. link. "Bridge!"

A furious snarl met her audio receptors. "What in—!"

Nightstalker hurried Bumblebee through the portal, ignoring Starscream's furious gaze as they burst back into the silo. However, Nightstalker's spark ceased beating when she heard the flat line of a spark as the bot hooked up to the medical berth experienced cardiac arrest.

*You got it?* Bumblebee asked immediately.

Cliffjumper hooted for the busy Ratchet. "He sure did, man! Nice work you three!"

Nightstalker jumped when she realized that Arcee had come through and the ground bridge had shut off. Cliffjumper grinned at her and cuffed her shoulder, saying, "Now, was that so hard? Easy as cake!"

Nightstalker forced a weak laugh, shifty eyes drawing back to Optimus so weak and vulnerable on the medical berth. "Yeah . . . Easy as cake."

Another time, Autobot scum.

* * *

><p>Still, after much celebration of Optimus's regain of health—of which Nightstalker manually clapped and smiled—Ratchet double checked everything, all the way down to the optics and reflexes.<p>

Nightstalker worried. Arcee had taken a last shot to terminate Megatron, disconnecting him from the life support he was on, which accounted for the sound of his spark flat lining when they darted through the ground bridge. Still, Nightstalker comforted herself with the fact that the life support was easily hooked back to him, and Soundwave would never let anything happen to his master. As far as she knew—and guiltily, secretly hoped—he was still alive.

However, what worried her most was . . . Bumblebee. Well, he seemed fine, but things just seemed a little off about him. He had gotten a bit temperamental while playing basketball with Bulkhead, and now, looking at him in the base, she realized that he hadn't even gone to take Raf to school like he always did.

Nightstalker was just about to go ask what was going on when she saw him walk over and pick up one of Ratchet's flashlights. Her brow puckered, and after a moment, he crushed the thing in his fist with abnormal amounts of force.

"Bumblebee!"

Nightstalker jumped sky high when Ratchet found him. Bumblebee's eyes dilated, and he turned around with a small coo, blinking at Ratchet. "I needed that!"

Bumblebee looked down in confusion at the flashlight. *What?*

Finally, even though he was put off that another piece of equipment was ruined, Ratchet said with genuine concern and bewilderment, "What has gotten into you?"

Nightstalker approached Bumblebee. "What's wrong, Bee?" she asked gently, taking the broken flashlight from his grip.

He displayed frustration and confusion, and finally he said, *I don't know! I—I keep seeing Megatron's face. In my mind*

"You're seeing Megatron's face?" Ratchet echoed. Nightstalker craned her head back up at Bumblebee uncertainly. She took his hand supportively.

Needless to say, Ratchet ran full scans over him when Bumblebee elaborated on these visions of past memories. Nightstalker tried to assure the upset scout, telling him that it was probably just repercussions of the cortical-psychic patch, but their medic was not convinced.

Later, after school when Miko dropped Raf off before she went dune bashing with Bulkhead, Ratchet forced Bumblebee into a stasis, telling the worried Raf about his friend's condition. In all, he hoped the induced power down would force his mind to rest and recover, but that was when they got the call for Decepticons in the polar region.

In short, Starscream was going to mine the biggest unminable energon deposit by melting the polar ice cap . . . which would raise sea levels and demolish coastal cities. Optimus, Arcee, Bulkhead, and Cliffjumper deployed to stop them while Jack and Miko went home for the night. Ratchet was in the back somewhere . . . doing as Ratchet does.

This left Nightstalker content to be, sitting criss cross at Bumblebee's feet while Raf told an invigorating story about his family that night. " . . . so I blow past the finish line! Then my other sister Pilar asked how I got so good at racing games. And I told her I knew a guy who knows cars—"

"Rafael."

Raf and Nightstalker looked up to Ratchet who had walked up. Nightstalker blinked her optics, a bit drowsy, but not as exhausted as Ratchet's tone of voice was. "I'm afraid Bumblebee can't hear you in power down mode. It's getting late, why don't I bridge you home to your family?"

"Because I told Bee I'd stay," Raf said. Nightstalker's lip curled up at his devotion, and he smiled before looking back up at Ratchet. "He's family too."

"Don't be ridiculous," Ratchet scoffed. "You're not even the same species."

Hitching up her legs to her chest, Nightstalker listened as Raf explained, "_That's_ being related. It's not the same thing. I'll show you."

Nightstalker was mildly surprised when Raf pulled out a flip phone. After clicking several buttons, he turned it up to Ratchet. "This is my family." Ratchet leaned down to look. Nightstalker inched up to see a fuzzy picture of a man and wife with four kids, discounting Raf—he would be the fifth.

Ratchet backed away, muttering something along the lines of, "Yes, very nice . . ."

"Very LARGE," Raf said, looking back at the screen. "Sometimes I can shout and no one hears me!"

Nightstalker smirked up at how awkward and standoffish Ratchet was trying to stay, muttering, "Yes, yes . . ."

Raf shook his head. "But Bumblebee always listens." A cute smile pulled across his face, and Nightstalker smiled down at him too. "And I can understand him. Not sure why . . . but I do."

Nightstalker's lips twitched. "Hey, Raf." She poked him lightly, his ticklish spot making him smile reflexively. "I'm here for you too. Okay? After all, you're my just like my little brother now. And so is Bee."

Raf grinned then, casting a glance up to Bumblebee before Nightstalker. "Yeah. You're right."

Nightstalker picked him up, and sitting criss cross again, sat him on her knee. "Go get some recharge, Ratch, we'll be all right here."

Oddly, the medic didn't say anything more but went away obediently. Nightstalker shook her head, sighing, "It's unfair how short I am. I mean—you nearly come up to my knee! Jack is already starting to pass my knee—if he's got a few more years of growing, he might get up to my thigh, like Fowler." She wrinkled her nose. "I am only fourteen feet and nine inches. At least Arcee is over fifteen."

Raf smiled up at her in the dim lights of the silo. "Maybe you're like me. I'm really short now, but I've got years of growing ahead of me."

Nightstalker barely suppressed a giggle. "Raf . . . I'm millennia old. My growing years are over with."

Raf blinked his brown eyes wide. "Really? How old are you?"

She grinned then, crossing her arms haughtily. "Oh really? I thought it was inappropriate to ask a lady her age!"

A searing blush scorched his face, and he nervously scratched behind his ear. "Oh! Well, yeah, that's right." He looked up suddenly, squinting his eyes a little in the darkness. "How come you have orange eyes?"

Nightstalker blinked, wings perking instantly. "W—What?"

Raf pushed his glasses up on his nose and cocked his head. "Well . . . the Decepticons I've seen all have red eyes, but you have orange ones. Why?"

Nightstalker felt the heat of energon wanting to sear her cheeks. "W-Well," she stuttered a little, "it was a . . . personal choice. Like Airachnid—she has purple optics. And Breakdown has yellow. Red is just the standard."

He gave a light shrug. "Okay." Raf scooted down to sit on her thigh and lean against her stomach plates. Nightstalker shifted so he wouldn't fall off. "Nights? I've been telling you a lot about my family tonight, but what about yours? I mean—you've told me a whole lot about Fli-Ni, but what about the rest of them?"

Nightstalker looked away, tapping a finger against the silo floor. "He was it. My family, I mean . . . He was all I had. We were all we had."

Raf looked up wide compassionate wide eyes. "You mean . . ."

Nightstalker gave a shrug. "I don't know who my parents were. Fli-Ni said he remembered our mother some. He said she was a seeker. He said she was silver. Since this was back when the Autobot and Decepticon factions were just starting to form, he said she still had blue optics." Nightstalker looked down on Raf's round eyes, and her lips squirmed a little. "He said she was little, which is probably what made us be really little too. He said she would sing to us." Nightstalker paused, and she let her eyes drift again. "Sometimes I like to think I remember that, but I don't. So I guess I don't really have anything to miss."

Raf leaned against the warm mesh of her belly. "That's so sad . . ." he said softly. She felt his little fingers grip her when he took her into a hug, trying to wrap his small arms around her tiny waist.

Nightstalker tried to give another nonchalant shrug. "It's okay." Still, she cupped her hand gently around his back. "Anyway, he doesn't know anything about our father. We always assumed he was a seeker. Fli-Ni said that whenever he asked our mom about him she said he had gone off to the war and didn't really elaborate." Nightstalker gave a weak laugh, shaking her head. "It didn't dawn on me until I grew up that she never had contact with him because he didn't care about any of us."

Raf looked up again, chocolaty eyes solemn. "Nights, that IS sad."

She gently scratched his back. "Maybe it is, but I can't change it, so there's no use in me worrying over it." Nightstalker shook her head. "I guess it just gets sadder after this. Fli-Ni said that Mom got sick, and she died."

"Nights, that's horrible!" Raf cried, his little mouth popping open. "Do you think . . . it was Cybonic Plague?"

"No," she said quickly, shaking her head. "If it was, we probably would have been infected too. I don't know what it was, but after Mom died, Fli-Ni and I had no one but ourselves. With Cybertronian currency getting strapped down tight by funding the war efforts and energon was getting scarcer, no one was willing to take in two extra mouths to feed. So, Fli-Ni and I were cast out to the streets."

"Nights—that's just—that's not right!" Raf's arms tightened around her, and she felt his body temperature rise a little with how agitated he had become.

"Right or not, that was how it turned out," Nightstalker said gently. She rubbed his back soothingly, giving a tired yawn before continuing. "Anyways, Fli-Ni took care of me. He made sure to steal some energon for us both, and if not enough for us both, he would always try to give it to me. But . . ." Nightstalker gave a soft laugh. "I think I was pretty intelligent as a kid. I always argued that if he didn't have the energy to steal some, both of us would run out of fuel. So, I took care of him too."

Nightstalker leaned back against the wall, and she looked up to Bumblebee again and the glow cast by the medical equipment. "So there we were, two little street urchins, grey and dirty and covered in dust and scratches, but . . . I don't know, I was happy. Fli-Ni and I goofed off all the time, played lots of hide and seek, helped each other survive, and we always got to explore the coolest places. Kaon turned into a giant playground, and, well, I knew I was loved by Fli-Ni, so it was all fine that he was my only family. He . . . became all I needed."

Nightstalker felt lubricant prick her optics, and she blinked rapidly, shaking her head. "It . . . I . . ." She swallowed, suddenly finding that she was tongue-tied anymore. Her spark tightened, and she was hit with a sudden combination of nostalgia for her home and a need for her brother that her breathing intakes hitched painfully.

"Nights . . ."

Nightstalker looked down at Raf, and he lifted his head, pushing up his glasses on his nose. "I'm glad you decided to be an Autobot. That way, you can be my sister, like Bumblebee became a brother."

She swallowed a bit uncomfortably. "Y-You mean that . . . ?"

Raf nodded, smiling. "Of course I do. And I bet Bee feels the same way."

Nightstalker felt her lips tremble, and she took a steadying breath, smiling softly at the small human in her lap. "Thanks, Raf. That . . . means a lot to me."

He beamed up at her. "Well, it means a lot to me too."

Nightstalker sat with him for some time, just enjoying each other's company. Eventually, Raf scrambled off to find his computer and mess around with it, but that was fine with Nightstalker. She relaxed in the silo, nearly dropping off to sleep when she heard Ratchet's footsteps bring him back to them.

"Rafael," he said, "I'm going to the supply vault to see if I can find parts to repair this." Nightstalker owlishly blinked her optics at him and the flashlight he held up. "You know what that means."

"Don't touch anything," Raf replied knowingly.

"Don't worry, Ratch," Nightstalker said around a yawn. She deliberately sat on her hands for him. "I won't touch anything either."

Ratchet muttered something unintelligible about her as he walked off to the back. Nightstalker chuckled to herself, and she was about to relax again when something unexpected happened.

Bumblebee powered up, and walked off.

"Bee?" Nightstalker heard herself chorus with Raf. He stepped off the pad and immediately began to walk off, and Nightstalker jumped up with Raf. "Bee, wait!"

Nightstalker felt astonished when Bumblebee simply ignored them, immediately powering up the ground bridge and walking through without preamble.

Nightstalker watched with her jaw dropped.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Nightstalker burst quickly to the infuriated Ratchet.

"Nothing!" Raf echoed. "Bumblebee just got up and—"

"He was in power down," Ratchet growled. "Where does he think he's off to?"

"I don't know," Nightstalker hissed back. She looked back worriedly through the ground bridge when it closed. "Should I go after him?"

Ratchet hesitated before checking something. "Even his signal's been deactivated," he muttered, a hand kneading at his neck. "By now there's no telling how far he could have gotten."

Nightstalker fluttered her wings. "Um, Ratch? Seeker?"

Ratchet hesitated again before finally bursting, "Ah-ah-ah—I still don't like the idea of you out of the base without supervision." He turned, and Nightstalker frowned, crossing her arms.

"Because I used to be a Decepticon."

"A valid point, but not the one I'm concerned with," Ratchet stated bluntly, making her brows wrinkle more. He returned to the ground bridge, setting Raf down above it. "You cannot defend yourself properly yet if you were to happen across danger."

Nightstalker huffed some in irritation. Now, she was GLAD Cliffjumper was teaching her to fight, considering that she was really starting to hate being a liability. Ratchet frowned as he looked down on the ground bridge controls. "These are the coordinates for the site of our previous battle with Megatron's undead," he breathed tensely.

Raf's little throat bobbed. "Maybe we should call Optimus."

"Optimus is busy preventing a polar ice cap from melting," Ratchet muttered, opening the ground bridge back up. "We need to handle this on our own."

However, before they could head out, out of all things, Bumblebee walked back through the ground bridge. Nightstalker blinked wide. "Bee?"

"Bumblebee? What have you been doing?"

He didn't even glance at Ratchet, but the medic latched a steely hand to Bumblebee's wrist. Nightstalker's optics widened at the sight of a shard of deep purple, absolutely seeping dark energies from it, clutched in his grip.

Ratchet was horrified. "Dark . . . energon—?"

Nightstalker screamed shortly when Bumblebee hauled off and slugged Ratchet so hard all but knocked the medic out cold. "Bee! What are you doing?"

Raf echoed her, and Nightstalker jumped back when he picked Raf up. No—wait! Unsure of whether to assess him as hostile or not, Nightstalker saw him simply move Raf high enough so that he couldn't run for help.

"Bumblebee, please! I know you're in there! You have to fight whatever is making you do this!"

Nightstalker jumped forward when he went for the ground bridge again. "Bee—stop it!" She pulled on his arm, but staggered back when he merely threw her off. "Bumblebee!"

The ground bridge blasted open with a different set of coordinates, and Nightstalker stood in his way, spreading her arms out. "Bee! Stop it! What are you doing?"

She swallowed, feeling inexplicably small when he came to stand in front of her, optics pinning her to the floor. Nightstalker's breathing cycles turned shallow.

That look in his optics . . . that wasn't Bumblebee.

As if to make his point clearer, his hand grasped her chin and forced her gaze level with his. A dark chuckle fell from Bumblebee's vocals.

***Fraternizing with the enemy . . . how atypical of you***

Nightstalker felt her optics widen. Gasping softly, Nightstalker's hands leapt up to grip at his arm—Bumblebee's arm—How was this even possible? How did he—what did he do to Bumblebee's mind?

How was _HE_ in Bumblebee's mind?

That grip so familiar tilted her chin up with one finger, and he leaned in closer.

***It has been too long, Nightstalker. A pity you changed***

Bumblebee's body brushed by her. Ratchet came to as the ground bridge closed automatically behind him, but Nightstalker found herself rooted to the spot even as Ratchet was shouting at her. The energon rushed in her audio receptors. The world spun.

She glitched.


	18. Shadow Zone

**Author's Note:**

**Sorry this took so long! Almost forgot it was Sunday, and then my day was busy enough with church all morning, we went through a lot of my grandparents old stuff (so much history! Just looking at all those pictures and old letters!) and then I washed my aunt's car for 20 bucks, so I've had a busy day. Compound that with the fact that this chapter was NOT wanting to come together, it's come up late tonight. ^^**

**Also, because this chapter was being such a butt, there's this kinda weird jump in the middle, but that's okay. I think it worked anyway. So here it is, it's technically on time! It's still Sunday for me! Granted . . . at 9:40 pm. XD Oooh, Nightstalker confrontation with Megatron . . . where will that lead us? Muah-ha-ha . . .**

* * *

><p>"Nightstalker? Nightstalker! By the All Spark, wake up, or so help me I will have you strung up by your peds!"<p>

Nightstalker fluttered her eyelids, frizzy optics focusing in on Ratchet's scowl. Her spark leapt to her throat. She jerked to a sitting position. "Bee—!"

Her helm smacked against Ratchet's, and she groaned, staggering to her feet. "Ratchet, Bumblebee!"

"I know!" he snarled, quickly going to collect Raf. "I fear the time he spent in Megatron's mindscape is causing him to think like a Decepticon."

"Bee's not a 'Con!" Raf declared hotly. Nightstalker stared at them, her spark rate rising again as she remembered that touch to her chin. She swallowed.

"Agreed," Ratchet said to the young human. "But we need to find out exactly what Bumblebee intends to do with that shard—" Ratchet paused, holding Raf. His brow furrowed. "Nightstalker, are you sure you're all right?"

Her lips trembled. She shook her head. "R-Ratchet . . . Bumblebee—that's not Bee."

Ratchet carefully sat Raf down above the bridge, frowning seriously at her. "What do you mean?"

"That—" Nightstalker took a steadying breath, and she fluttered her wings nervously. "That wasn't Bee," she whispered. Guiltily, she looked up at Ratchet. "That—that was _Megatron._"

A stricken look crossed Ratchet's face. "But that can't be—" He stopped in the middle of his sentence, snarling to himself, "The only one who knew of the dark energon was _Megatron_ . . . How could I have been such a fool!"

Nightstalker jumped into action, following Ratchet as he explained to Raf the two-way conduit of the cortical-psychic patch. Bumblebee returned to his own mind, but Megatron followed.

Thus, jumping through the ground bridge to the last coordinates Bumblebee used, Nightstalker froze with Ratchet and Raf.

The _NEMESIS._

How was it that she kept coming back to this place? "He probably went straight for his body," Nightstalker whispered. She gestured furiously. "Come on!"

She was sure if it had just been Ratchet he could have made it there on his own—the amount of trashed Vehicons was ridiculous. They were actually very close to the medical bay—within a minute or two they were there, watching Bumblebee hook himself to Megatron—or, Megatron hook him to himself.

Ratchet rushed him before Nightstalker could. "Don't hurt Bumblebee!" Raf cried out.

"That's not Bumblebee!" he snarled back. He took one swing before the scout's body duck and mashed his fist with such a powerful swing it sent Ratchet flying across the room. Nightstalker stood, jaw gaping with indecision before she realized too late—Raf wasn't next to her.

"Bumblebee, no!"

She darted after him. "Raf!"

However, she was startled to see Bumblebee turn around, dark energon clutched in hand. "Remember who you are," Raf pleaded. Nightstalker skidded to a halt behind him, spark pounding ridiculously hard. "Remember me! I know you always listen to me, no matter what!"

Nightstalker stood immobile and half crouched while a series of contradictory expressions chased across Bumblebee's face. This . . . it was working! Bumblebee's optics focused back in on him a moment. *Raf? Raf, is that you?*

"That's right, Bee!" he said eagerly. "It's me!"

Bumblebee cried out and clutched his head, staggering around several steps. A belated moment later, it registered to Nightstalker that he was fighting Megatron in his mind, fighting for control of his own body. *I—Raf, I—Nights! Raf—!* He collapsed on his hands and knees.

Then, with an easy slap, Raf was knocked halfway across the room. Nightstalker instantly turned her back on Megatron and cried out, "Raf!" She took a defensive crouch in front of him, uncertain of what she could possibly do to MEGATRON of all bots.

Without truly knowing what to do in battle, Nightstalker stood as a ward between Megatron and Raf, but he ignored them and simply went for Ratchet who had disconnected his life support. Nightstalker shrieked, dodging Ratchet when Megatron literally threw him across the room and nearly into her.

She watched, stupidly, helplessly while he plunged the dark energon into his body's chest, and before she knew it, the cortical-psychic patch was finished. Megatron opened his optics.

Everyone backed up when he sat up. Nightstalker found herself in the front, backing up the dizzy Bumblebee, Ratchet, and Raf because somewhere in her she believed that he wouldn't harm her. Stupid . . . but true. Her neck craned back to keep her sights on his face.

She barely registered the Vehicons rushing into the room, no doubt tipped off by Soundwave. Megatron didn't even glance at the three Autobots in the room with him. His hateful glare cut through everything.

"Decepticons!" he declared on a snarl. "You're rightful lord and master has returned!"

All of them literally stayed out of his way as he stalked past. He paused, giving them all a scathing glance, but his optics lingered over Nightstalker. She swallowed uncomfortably, wings fluttering like mad.

"Finish these pests!" he ordered, and Nightstalker's optics popped open wide. He prowled like a predator to the doorway. Nightstalker stared at his back, shock slowly spilling through her system. He growled darkly, "I have my own extermination to perform."

He was just barely out of the room when the Vehicons erupted into gunfire. "Holy Primus—!" Nightstalker cried out when a bullet smashed into her shoulder, knocking her to the floor the pain was so forceful and unexpected. Groaning and forcing herself to grit through the pain, she ducked behind Bumblebee while Ratchet tucked Raf to his chest and ran for some semblance of safety.

"Follow him!" she ordered Bumblebee, ducking low as Ratchet crawled forward through the ducts that she had used the last time she had been on the ship. "Ratchet, go straight!"

They crawled quickly through the ducts, Nightstalker ordering Ratchet here and there until she got them out into a, luckily, vacant hallway. "This way!"

She ran ahead, taking her blade out of her arm and clutching at her wounded shoulder. Energon leaked from her systems, and she clenched her jaw tightly.

*Nights? Are you okay?*

"Shh!" she hissed, checking down the next hallway. Primus knew if they were fliers, they would have been off the ship already, but she couldn't risk Ratchet or Bumblebee taking the jump off the ship to the ground when they had Raf. Even at the low altitude the _NEMESIS_ was at, she didn't trust it. It was still too high.

Nightstalker pressed herself to the side of the wall, peeking over to the hallway that she had purposefully brought them too. She flinched back, swallowing hard for courage when she saw two Vehicons. She signaled Bumblebee, and he nodded.

Of unspoken agreement, they attacked as one. Nightstalker burst from cover first as Bumblebee open fired on the first and closest Vehicon. Transforming inside the spacious halls of the warship, Nightstalker used the speed to throw herself into the farther Vehicon. She landed feet first on his chest, knocking the guy to the ground before she rolled off from too much speed. Quickly turning back, Nightstalker raised her blade for what she hoped was a killing blow at his neck, but she gritted her teeth when the Vehicon grabbed her wrist, holding her slash back. Nightstalker gasped, and then she screamed in pain when the larger Vehicon took advantage of her and slammed his fist into her wounded shoulder.

A blast made him collapse on top of her. Nightstalker fought for breath, warning signals flashing in front of her optics. She shoved them away, heaving in deep breaths when Bumblebee threw the dead Vehicon from her.

"Thanks," she gasped out, taking his hand to get herself to her feet.

Ratchet's optics widened. "Escape pods!"

He went for the closest one, entering it immediately, and Nightstalker pushed Bumblebee towards it. "Get in!"

*But—*

"There's enough room for you both!" she persisted, pushing him in. When she shut the door for them, Bumblebee's optics widened in horror.

*Nights—!*

"Seeker!" she shouted back at him, and slammed her fist on the button to drop them. The door to stop the sudden suction of pressure almost caught her wings when she dropped through right after them, but Nightstalker transformed and flew after them—and almost got hit with another plane.

Jerking back, Nightstalker hovered uncertainly when she saw Starscream transform and crash on the wing of the _NEMESIS_. Megatron's eyes flickered to her, unsurprised that they got away, actually, but he didn't dwell on it.

He was LETTING them get away. He didn't care.

She saw his fierce red optics pin to the cowering Starscream with terrifying hatred, a sinister light glowing in them.

Megatron bypassed her, and Nightstalker didn't have to take a moment to understand what was going on there—instead, she darted down to the ground where the escape pod had crashed down.

Bumblebee was pulling himself up and out, and his blue optics collided with her. *Nights* he cooed in relief. She nodded dumbly, not sure what she was nodding for, but she was; and she was holding her throbbing shoulder. Bumblebee tinkled a laugh, pulling himself out of the pod.

*Nights, I think it's about time we found the others*

* * *

><p><em>Oh crap.<em>

Nightstalker leapt to her feet when she saw Miko, Jack, and Raf all running through the ground bridge. Fragging slag! What were they thinking? Then, it hit like a baseball bat.

Zombie Decepticon.

Of COURSE Miko was going to want to go see that in person! And she didn't even want to THINK about why Jack and Raf were both after her, possibly to protect her, she didn't know—Primus help them all! They could only get a week of no activity before the kids pulled a stunt like this? Nightstalker squeezed through the ground bridge just as the unsuspecting Arcee shut it down.

Nightstalker froze when she saw the backs of Cliffjumper, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Bulkhead, and Optimus all congregating together to see what foils Megatron had in store with his dark energon. Nightstalker gritted her dentures, and crawled up the slew of rocks the humans had, crouching above them just as she heard Bulkhead burst, "That's not Megatron!"

Nightstalker's jaw popped when she saw Starscream fused with dark energon, and a clear dark energon pulse emitting from the ground. " . . . could be my only chance to take some snaps." Nightstalker looked down on the three humans she was crouched above. Miko's hand went for her phone, and she jerked straight. "My cell phone! I must have dropped it back at base!"

"Yeah, that won't be the only thing you lose if we don't get ourselves out of here!" Nightstalker hissed to her. All three humans jumped at her voice, looking up with wide eyes. "What were you guys thinking? Wait—don't answer that. I—" Nightstalker shrieked slightly when Starscream suddenly open fired on the Autobots, and the explosion rocked the ground. She tumbled backwards before righting herself, scrambling back up to protect the humans.

"You cannot harm me while dark energon flows through my veins!" she heard Starscream gloating to them, his voice carrying eons through the valley.

However, Miko was hot and in _Jack's_ face of all people, shouting, "I can't believe you made me lose my phone!"

Nightstalker crawled back up just in time to see five Autobots staring at her and the humans. "Scrap," she muttered, and accessed her communicator. "Hey, Arcee, if you're missing me and the humans, they followed the bots. We need a ground bridge."

It blasted open immediately, and oddly, another with it. Nightstalker's gaze jumped in between them until Ratchet shouted out, "You four! Into our ground bridge! Now!"

"You heard the mech!" Nightstalker growled, picking up Raf and sitting him on her shoulder almost too small to carry him. "Here we go!" Snatching up Jack and Miko in her hands, Nightstalker went straight for it, saying, "And now look! I'm included in your blunder! I'M going to get blamed for—!"

Nightstalker paused in her angry tangent as she ran through the ground bridge . . . STILL ran through the ground bridge. She stopped, eyes dilating. "Why aren't we through yet?" she whispered. She drove forward again with all her might, but they should have LONG been into the base again. By this time, Nightstalker's optics were darting around inside the morphing bridge that was quickly becoming unstable.

"What's happening?" she heard Jack cry out.

"Nights—"

"I don't know!" she shouted above the whine of the bridge, "but we gotta get out of here!" Turning back around since it wasn't letting her get to the base, Nightstalker ran for the exit they had come in from, but the energies literally licked over her they were going so haywire. _What in the name of Primus is happening?_

The collapse of the ground bridge happened so suddenly she almost didn't have the time to react. Nightstalker hunched over her three humans, and the bridge exploded.

Nightstalker's eyes glitched back to focus. Blinking rapidly as the dust settled around them, she dilated her eyes several times until they focused on the worried faces of Jack, Raf, and Miko.

"Uhh . . . What just happened?"

Nightstalker looked up at Bulkhead who . . . seemed discolored. No, everything seemed discolored. Nightstalker looked up in confusion. Hadn't there been a sun just a second ago? Now it was all . . . cloudy.

"I can't be certain," Ratchet said slowly, "but if two ground bridges sent to the same coordinates crossed streams, the feedback could have triggered a system overload."

Nightstalker rubbed her forehead tiredly. "And thus, the bridge exploded."

"The kids made it through, right?"

Nightstalker froze at Bulkhead's assumption. "Guys . . ."

Miko scowled, shouting, "Bulkhead, we're right here!"

Nightstalker's jaw popped. No. Way.

Optimus touched his communicator. "Arcee, did Nightstalker and the children make it safely back to base?"

Nightstalker slowly began to fan her wings as dread caught up with her. "No sign," Ratchet answered. Nightstalker tried to patch through to them, but she was met with only an angry static. "You guys? Cliff! Cliffjumper, can you hear me?"

Cliffjumper touched his audio receptor. "Hold on, guys, I'm getting something."

Her spark leapt. "Cliffjumper!" she shouted louder. "Cliffjumper, can you hear me? Cliff! Cliff!"

However, her jaw popped open again when he shook his head. "Never mind. It was just a little static."

"Bulkhead!" Nightstalker's optics jumped to Miko at Bulkhead's foot. "What? No sign? Okay, seriously, Bulk—"

Miko squealed when Bulkhead took a step forward. However, Nightstalker was shocked and relived both when he simply stepped through her.

Nightstalker ran after them. "Primus—you guys!" She swiped at Bulkhead too, but her claws went straight through him. She did it for Bumblebee; for Cliffjumper; for Ratchet. She even tried to hit Optimus—but her claws just passed through him. Angry now, Nightstalker slashed harder and harder at him, just wishing his energon would spill when she heard Raf.

"Wait—Different dimension?"

Stopping her furious attack on Optimus, Nightstalker turned back to the kids and knelt down. She poked each one in the chest, and when Miko protested, Nightstalker muttered, "Just making sure I was in the same spot as you guys . . ." Nightstalker froze hearing the bots. No . . . Skyquake? But if he wasn't there, and they weren't there—

Nightstalker jumped eighty-nine miles out of her metal when a hand came around from the next corner. She pressed herself into the alley wall as an utterly monstrous Skyquake ambled along, dripping energon and moaning like a demented creature.

"Zombie!"

However, what Nightstalker WASN'T prepared for, was those kids to go running after Skyquake and the bots about to go through the ground bridge. They shouted out, warning them of the incoming fiend, but Nightstalker's spark froze when Skyquake attacked Bulkhead—

And his arm passed straight through him.

_Primus no . . ._


	19. Zombie Standoff

**Author's Note:**

**Put up early in response to a close friend not having internet for tomorrow and an indefinite amount of time possibly over a week who wanted to read this before she lost internet.**

**Anyways . . . I'm experiencing severe writer's block on EVERYTHING I am writing, so you guys are lucky I'm a couple chapters ahead of schedule or else you would have had jack squat this week XD**

**I'm SOOOOOOO ready for the next two chapters! :D :D :D**

* * *

><p>Nightstalker literally began to shake so hard her metal tinkled together. TOGETHER. With a Decepticon zombie!<p>

"Awesome!" Miko cheered. "It can't touch them either!"

Her outburst caught its attention. Skyquake turned to them, and Nightstalker felt her mouth run dry.

She was their only protection. Against a bot almost twice as big as she was? Nightstalker shook harder. Her training skills didn't amount to anything for this!

She popped her machine gun out of her back, shouting at the paralyzed kids, "Run!" Dear Primus, what was she doing, what was she doing, what was she doing—!

Taking aim at a target impossible to miss, Nightstalker shot at him, distracting him from the kids while they got a little bit of a head start of running. Her energon curdled in her tanks when Skyquake looked directly into her line of fire, her bullets doing nothing more than tingeing off of him.

"Move it, move it, move it!" she shouted out to them, dashing along when Skyquake took a swipe at her. Dear PRIMUS how were they going to get out of this one!

Nightstalker squeaked when she almost stepped on Raf who tripped, and she went staggering to the side. "Move it, son!" she ordered him, picking him up and giving him a push towards the other humans—who cowered behind a rock.

Nightstalker's spark pounded hard as she ducked into cover with them. "Move it!" she growled, giving a jab in the other direction. "We don't have time for dallying!"

"My glasses!" Raf pleaded. "I can't see without them!"

Nightstalker ground her teeth and peeked around to corner to see said zombie marching along towards them and the offending glasses on the ground. Shooting a couple times, Nightstalker burst out, snatched the glasses, and ducked back into cover as he gained ground.

"Here!" she burst. He quickly grabbed them and shoved them on his face. "Now get moving!"

She tried to contact Cliffjumper again. "Cliff? Cliffjumper, listen!" She could barely hear herself through the static, and she prayed to Primus that Cliffjumper could. "We're in an alternate dimension with a zombie Decepticon! Cliff!" Still, nothing. She tried base. "You guys?" Nightstalker wanted to run faster when the zombie roared behind them, and she looked to the slower humans. They were just fast enough to stay out of his range, but if that zombie suddenly decided he knew how to run . . . "Guys, zombie 'Con on our afts!" she shouted into the comm. link, hoping they could possibly get something. "Zombie 'Con! Zombie 'Con! I've got the kids—guys—!"

Sensing the 'Con getting closer, Nightstalker took the chance to put another round in him, but her bullets still did nothing.

"Maybe we could set a trap!" she heard Miko suggest as they ran. "You know? Try to crush it!"

"With what?" Raf shot back. "Nothing here is solid except us and the ground!"

"You can take him, Nights!" she shouted up at her.

Nightstalker let out a humorless laugh. "Miko, I'm half his size! Bullets are doing nothing? I couldn't possibly do anything to him!"

"Sure you can!" she persisted, albeit a little less enthusiastic. "I bet you've had to torture guys that big before, so I don't see the problem!"

"Problem is," she yelled, "before they were tied up in chains!"

Miko huffed. "Well, we can't run forever!" Nightstalker could have smacked herself. Of course they couldn't! The kids would run out of energy first, and then Nightstalker would eventually run out of energon. However, Mr. Happy Zombie 'Con Guy would never need a rest. "But maybe we can hide!"

Nightstalker gritted her jaw. That wouldn't work—there were only so many hiding places, after all. But, maybe they could try to get a hold of base again.

After running for a lot longer, they found themselves in a small corner, a dead end, but a small enough corner to hide themselves in. Luckily for them, Skyquake was a ways behind, and the kids had a chance to catch their breath.

Nightstalker felt a ring through her communicator. "Cliff? Cliffjumper!" She paused as if she could hear him, and when it was nothing but static, cursed and cut the transmission. Half a second later, Jack's phone rang.

"Hello? Arcee? Hello! A-A-Arcee!" He groaned, ending the call. "Nothing."

"That's all I've been getting," Nightstalker told them, looking over the boulder for Skyquake. "Otherwise we would have had help by now."

"Guys," Jack said, and his tone of voice made Nightstalker look back down at him. "The phone RANG. We're getting a signal!"

It took Raf all of five seconds to suggest texting. "Text me!" Miko burst. "If my phone's back at the base, maybe they'll see it!"

Jack quickly began to type on his phone, and Nightstalker felt a rumble through her peds. _Oh Primus . . ._ Peeking around the corner, she saw Skyquake approaching, and she cursed.

"Type and run!" she ordered them, putting away her machine gun—it was doing no good. Running up, she jumped on said zombie-'Con with her spark in her throat, and she got up on his back. Skyquake roared, swiping at her as the kids ran beneath, and she pulled out her little blade from her arm. With a bravado she didn't feel, Nightstalker jabbed down at the back of his neck. The 'Con roared, and she got to stab him once more in the sensitive area before a hand grabbed her and threw her. The world spun, and Nightstalker felt every breath expelled from her body when she hit the canyon wall.

Her fuzzy optics tried to process Skyquake lumbering towards her and the kids still running. Primus, he had thrown her all the way in front of the kids? She couldn't even process how far she had been chucked. "Run," she gasped to Jack, Raf, and Miko, staggering to her feet again. Where was her knife? After a quick scramble, she found it drenched in blue energon.

"Déjà vu!" Nightstalker heard Miko cry. "Doesn't this look familiar to you?"

"Not really!" Jack shouted back.

"Dude, we just ran one big circle—! Oomph!"

Nightstalker froze when all three humans ran straight into Starscream's arm. She cursed on the inside and dropped back to the oncoming Skyquake.

Nightstalker slipped between the zombie's legs, trying to hack at him, but it wasn't doing too good. Yelping, Nightstalker ducked beneath his hand and put her knife away, opting for her whips. Slamming them against his front in hopes to short him out, she didn't do much more than infuriate it farther. Darting away, Nightstalker jumped up on the side of the canyon wall and straight for the 'Con's head, and she slammed both electrical whips into his head. The power of voltage should have been enough to down any normal 'Con, but the zombie just snarled and his shorted-out optics turned towards her.

Nightstalker screamed when his claws raked down her front, leaving four deep gouges in her body. Falling from Skyquake's shoulder, Nightstalker groaned on her back. Her optics widened at the foot that descended towards her. Tumbling away, Nightstalker jolted to a stop when his foot trapped her whips beneath his heel. Her breathing quickened in panic. Yanking at them, the sheer weight that pinned them was too much. A hand clamped around her body, and she screamed in terror.

She was first thrown into the canyon wall, and Nightstalker bucked when she felt one of her wings crumple beneath the weight of her body. That hand grabbed her again, and threw her down to the ground. Pain exploded across her front, the dust getting in and irritating her four open wounds from his claws. A rough kick sent her flying over the kids, and Nightstalker gasped, energon leaking from her mouth.

An explosion rocked out, and she lifted her fritzing optics to see a rough image of the kids at Starscream's arm and a cloud of smoke obstructing Skyquake. "Ha! How do you like us now!" Miko crowed in triumph, and that was when it dawned on Nightstalker. A weak laugh spilled through her.

They had used Starscream's missile against Skyquake!

However, that was short lived.

Nightstalker stared in horror when Skyquake roared out in fury, purple optics glazing from the smoke. She watched one of his arms dangle, and then fall. When it flipped over, all four of them snapped out of their daydream.

"Run!" Nightstalker shouted at them, and she didn't have to say it twice. The humans all took off while a completely sentient arm ran after them as well, faster than said zombie 'Con who lumbered after them.

Nightstalker forced herself to her feet, staggering a little, but she kicked away the offending arm when it came too close. Hovering near the humans now, Nightstalker recoiled her whips and pulled out her machine gun to shoot at it—which didn't go over well, she had awful aim and it was fast. She switched out for her curved blade again when the zombie arm approached too close.

Things proceeded like that until the humans stopped again back at Starscream's used arm, gasping for breath.

"Starscream!"

Nightstalker gasped, leaning on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath. Starscream approached from the front, but she quickly assured the worried humans, "He's in the other dimension! We would have seen him a bazillion times from going in circles!"

"You rightful master has returned!" he proclaimed to the air—preferably, to Skyquake.

"Keep moving!" Nightstalker barked at them. "Run through him, we've got zombies on our afts!" Kicking the offending arm again, Nightstalker jogged after them. However, all four skidded to a halt when a ground bridge exploded in front of them and Starscream.

"A ground bridge portal?" Raf wheezed.

"That has to be our way out of here," Jack asserted, brows pinching.

"The Autobots must have saw our text!" Miko crowed.

"Wait!" Nightstalker gasped for breath, holding a hand to her bleeding front. She gave a weak gesture. "Screamer. I can't—"

She looked back to the zombie arm after them. Brandishing her blade with the last of her will, Nightstalker whispered, "Wait for my say." Starscream wasn't moving, luckily, and she narrowed her optics at the arm, calculating the distance and the speed, and—

"Go!"

All three humans took off, and Nightstalker waited the breath of a moment as Starscream saw them burst from the other dimension. "What? Humans—"

Nightstalker leapt through the bridge. Starscream screamed like a sissy at the unsuspecting attack that took him to the ground, and Nightstalker jabbed her blade into the first place she found which happened to be between the joint of his shoulder and his arm. He howled in pain, and Nightstalker leapt off of him. Sprawling in the dirt, she turned around to see the zombie hand leap through and grab Starscream's face. He shrieked more, thrashing.

Another ground bridge blasted open. Nightstalker saw the Autobots, and honestly, it was probably the happiest she had ever been to see Optimus. Cliffjumper's optics popped wide.

"Nights!"

Her hand gripped her blade like a vice, and she staggered to her feet, unknowing of how wild she looked. Cliffjumper scooped her up bridal style, and Nightstalker let him, too tired to even help herself anymore.

"Primus, you look _horrible_ . . ." The blinding sun dimmed, and it dawned on Nightstalker that Cliffjumper had brought her through the ground bridge. "Ratchet!"

Nightstalker felt hands on her—oh, probably Ratchet's. She gritted her dentures when he touched her, and she keened a sound in between her teeth when her wounds agitated her.

"Easy, Nightstalker," she heard him saying. "I'm going to put you into power down. It'll make this a whole lot easier."

The last thing she heard was Cliffjumper protesting that Ratchet never did that for him.

* * *

><p>"Nightstalker! Wake up, or I <em>will<em> give you a taste of my wrench!"

Nightstalker jolted to the land of the living with a thin gasp, hands latching to the first thing they found. Her wild optics collided with blue ones, and by the shape of them, she registered that they were Ratchet's. She let go of him and crossed her arms, trembling like mad.

"All right, calm it down, Nightstalker. Deep breaths."

When his hand took hers in the dim silo, Nightstalker grabbed it and held it close to her chest. She bit down on her own hands holding his, fighting the panicking that wanted to overcome her. Carefully regulating her breathing, Nightstalker's fanning wings slowly began to still though she was still upset.

She shivered to herself, cringing as if his screams were in the present, a haunting of things past that she could never shake. "Easy, Nightstalker," she heard Ratchet saying, much more gentle than she had ever heard him before. Her jumpy optics registered an energon cube being pushed to her. "Drink this."

She shook her head, feeling optic lubricant welling up. "I don't want it," she rasped.

"You're low on energon," Ratchet said stiffly. He tried to wrest his hand from her grasp, but her grip was too tight. "I would have woken you up regardless of the nightmare. Now, drink."

When she still shook, Ratchet grumbled to himself and sat down next to her, holding the cube to her lips. Nightstalker drank with his help, gagging a bit sometimes because her body didn't want to hold it in.

"When is it going to stop?"

Nightstalker didn't have to explain the reoccurring nightmares to the medic, but he just shook his head. "Whenever you finally forgive yourself. Now, _drink_."

She took another sip to appease him and held his hand closer to her chest. "Does it happen to Cliffjumper too?"

Ratchet pressed the cube to her lips again. "Drink."

She turned her face away to look up at him. "It does, doesn't it?"

Ratchet paused, frowning down at her. "More than once he has been wandering the halls. But that isn't the problem right now." He pressed the energon towards her again, and Nightstalker tried to ignore her upset stomach to drink more and refuel.

After several quiet sips, Nightstalker felt the optic lubricant starting to drip down her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she whispered ashamedly, and she pressed her face into the large hand she held. "It's my fault . . . I'm sorry . . ."

There was a beat of silence before she felt Ratchet's finger wiggle, gently stroking her cheek. "After possibly one of the most courageous days of your life and you're crying?"

Nightstalker swallowed, pressing into one of his knuckles. "W-What?"

Ratchet gave a grunt in the dim lights of the silo. "The kids couldn't stop talking about how brave you were. I'm pretty sure Miko blew it out of proportions—come to think, absolutely _certain_ that she blew it out of proportions—but they couldn't stop narrating your fearless battle with Skyquake."

Nightstalker felt her vocals hitch, steady tears rolling down her cheeks. "I was terrified," she whispered tightly, wings beginning to flutter.

"Ask any weathered warrior how many times he was afraid going into battle," Ratchet chided her gently. "It's normal. Don't beat yourself up over it. You did what needed to be done when it needed doing, and must I remind you, without the proper training of even the lowliest soldier." His thumb wiped a tear. "Now stop all this crying, you're liable to lose the energon faster than I can get it in you."

Nightstalker took a shuddering breath, following his instructions. Drinking a bit more, knowing that after her hard battle and losing much energon she needed to, no matter how it made her gag every time. Finally, Ratchet deemed she had enough fuel to last her enough for his peace of mind and let her relax on the medical berth again. Nightstalker swallowed and released a stressed breath, and closed her optics.

"Thank you, Ratchet."

He merely grunted, and a smile played at the edges of her lips. Poor medic. He thought he could hide his caring side from people.


	20. Autobot Scum

**Author's Note**:

**Eep! I nearly forgot to put this chapter up! And it's SO good too! And as for action sequences seeming a bit choppy . . . it's Nightstalker's first time taking orders and executing them on the field of battle and trying to keep up with everything that's happening. Since this is in 3rd Person Limited, Nightstalker's POV, you realize she can't possibly be suited for battle XD lmao.**

**:D This turned out PERFECTLY.**

* * *

><p>The next month was . . . well, uneventful. At least, uneventful for Nightstalker.<p>

Ratchet had forced her to spend the next day extremely lightly considering her bout with Skyquake had been her first real battle with Decepticons. Despite Ratchet's worrying, Nightstalker recovered well while the bots went to rescue Breakdown from MECH.

The next week was full of strife with Arcee, Airachnid, MECH, and June Darby getting kidnapped. Nightstalker, even though she was worried sick when she heard, was glad it was Arcee and not her that had a confrontation with Airachnid—the thought of her previous mentor sent crawls through her system.

After that, a full two weeks passed without anything happening. It was a refreshing pace—Nightstalker got in lots of training with the bots; Arcee got serious to training her, helping her wield her gun and blade correctly. There was lots of playing around. Cliffjumper finally got around to that competition of lob with Bulkhead—and no, CLIFFJUMPER was the one that got put on his aft after all his big talk. Bumblebee took her out on every scouting mission he had which was loads of fun for Nightstalker considering she got her doses of flight that she absolutely craved as a seeker. And she also saw a lot more of June . . .

Then, the record was broken when Arcee, Bulkhead, Jack, and Miko all went to check out a stripped and abandoned Deception mine. Which, of course, wasn't fully stripped OR abandoned. Jack detailed a creepy encounter with Megatron while Miko and Bulkhead had been caught beneath a caving roof, and Starscream and Megatron's hand in the cave in. It had Nightstalker panicking on the inside at coming so close to losing the two humans as well as her friends.

And also . . . Ratchet was worrying. As was Optimus and the others. It was no secret that their energon reserves were coming to an all time low. And so, Nightstalker came up to Ratchet one day.

"Ratchet?"

He vented in frustration, turning her way. "What is it?" he asked brusquely.

Nightstalker fluttered her wings a bit nervously at his impatience that never failed to intimidate her. "I know we're low on energon reserves," she muttered, "and I was wondering . . . Is there some way you could use my lava as a source of energy?"

He scoffed in the back of his throat. "Nightstalker, I doubt that you have enough lava contained in your small frame to make a difference."

"But I should have enough," she persisted, fanning her wings slowly, "if just for myself." Ratchet paused, giving her a serious look. She gave a shrug. "At least that way you could band-aid us until we could find another energon reserve . . ."

He studied her for a moment, but an urgent beeping from the computer turned his head away immediately. "Optimus," he stressed, bringing the bot over. Nightstalker cringed away. "Our scanners have detected a Decepticon energy profile, but it's . . . ancient."

"The past has a way of catching up with the present, Ratchet," he stated gravely, and Nightstalker felt her wings perk and her hands clench. How it did, indeed.

Nightstalker watched the bots assemble, and her gaze caught Cliffjumper's. His optics widened.

"Hey, Optimus!" He trotted up to present himself to the leader, and he jerked a thumb her way. "How about we take Nightstalker with us this time?"

Nightstalker blinked in shock, and even Optimus expressed surprise. "Why now, Cliffjumper?"

He shrugged. "Well, since we're all gonna be out there this time, it'll be safe enough for her. And she needs a taste of REAL battle, not some crazy zombie 'Con. And besides, we might not find anything anyway . . . But still, it'll be good for her to get a taste of the field. And what better way to train than to do?" He snorted. "That was always Kup's motto. Surprised more of his neophytes didn't get scrapped . . ."

Nightstalker blinked at him. "You can't be serious."

However, after a deep rumble of thought, Optimus nodded his head. "I agree, Cliffjumper. Nightstalker, come with us, and stay close to Bumblebee."

She let out a short, disbelieving breath even while Bumblebee gave some excited chirps. *That's great, Nights! Just stick with me, and we'll be all right!*

As the ground bridge blasted open, Nightstalker shook her head with disbelief. "You say that with such enthusiasm . . ."

They crossed over, heading towards the Decepticon ship. Bumblebee leaned down towards her, whispering, *Sure. You've had good training, and you're picking it up pretty well. And Kup always said the best way to learn was to do*

Nightstalker and Bulkhead pulled up the rear, Bumblebee in front of her as they entered and began to search through the ship. However, as they passed a corner of the halls in the ship, they all halted for some reason.

The reactions of Arcee and Optimus were so reflexive it was almost mechanical.

"_Airachnid._"

"Surrender!"

Nightstalker felt her jaw drop, and she looked around the corner just in time to see the back of the spider-bot's rear disappear around the corner. It was impossible to miss the delusional shouting of, "Airachnid! You traitor!" Nightstalker followed the others, Arcee and Optimus immediately running past a web-caught Starscream who was stuck lying in the floor.

"Arcee, wait!"

Cliffjumper and Bumblebee instantly trained their guns on Starscream, and Nightstalker jumped when Optimus turned his optics on her. "Nightstalker, follow her!"

She felt her jaw go slightly slack. "What?"

*Nights, you're the only one small enough to fit through that hole!* Bumblebee cried. He gave a gesture. *Go!*

"Oh—" Nightstalker jumped forward, pressing her wings as flat as possible and crawling up through the narrow tunnel to the top. Her eyes alighted on Arcee scouring the area with her optics, and then, the top of the tunnel exploded.

Nightstalker shrieked when a tunneling Decepticon exploded above her head, nearly coming up through the same hole to get Arcee. Dirt and debris scattered down her metal in a dry rain, and Nightstalker coughed a couple times to clear her articulators. She waved a hand through the cloud of dust and squinted up.

She froze. Poking the tip of her head out of her hole, Nightstalker saw Airachnid's back, all six legs splayed for the attack. "Arcee," she leered at the Autobot, just as deadly as Nightstalker remembered her.

Arcee smirked right back. "I didn't peg you for signing back up with the Decepticons." Nightstalker shrank back when Arcee drew her blades.

"A temporary arrangement, Arcee," Airachnid huffed, not even flinching when Arcee set out at a dead run towards her. If Nightstalker's wings hadn't have been pinned to her back, she would have been fluttering them like mad. "You know I prefer working alone."

Nightstalker's claws gripped the inside of the tunnel tighter, some fear holding her back from intervening. Arcee attacked, and they tussled a moment more before Airachnid got her in a pin, sneering, "Add anymore deceased partners to your growing list?"

"Airachnid!" Nightstalker jolted at Optimus's voice, and so did her mentor. His gun was leveled at her. "Release her!"

Nightstalker finally jolted into action. Airachnid slung Arcee away from her, and Optimus open fired on her. When she transformed, Nightstalker did. She took off, and Nightstalker followed, her little machine guns firing. Airachnid made to flee, and Nightstalker followed for only to the perimeter she was set to, but then, the helicopter gave a dark laugh. Nightstalker's thrusters groaned she stopped so suddenly, and she barely had two seconds before Airachnid charged and transformed, tackling her alt form.

Nightstalker cried out when Airachnid crashed down on top of her, and she instinctively transformed to use her hands to push at the spider-bot. Airachnid hissed, and Nightstalker shrieked when she saw venom seeping from her teeth.

She kicked, but Airachnid caught her with her extra appendages. "Traitorous glitch!" Airachnid snarled down on her, and Nightstalker howled when she felt the venom drip onto her shoulder. Fire tore through her systems as urgent messages of the damage began to flicker across her optics. Nightstalker twisted and writhed beneath her but was caught fast. Blazing purple optics glittered with teetering rage. "I'll bring your head to Megatron as a gift, you fragging whore!"

Nightstalker wrenched her body around, just managing to avoid one death strike from a leg, and by that time, a shot from Optimus blasted Airachnid away from her. Nightstalker scrambled to her feet, pulling out her machine gun and quickly running back to Optimus and Arcee. This time, Airachnid fled with a furious hiss and didn't return.

When Optimus and Arcee put away their weapons, Nightstalker followed suit, a deep burning echoing in the singed spot of her shoulder. Optimus reached to her as if to help, but Nightstalker jerked away, unable to stop the glint in her optics. "I'm fine!" she snapped, and the instant his optics widened at her outburst, she knew she shouldn't have done it. She fluttered her wings a bit nervously, muttering, "It's just a scratch . . ."

Optimus left it for lost, and turned towards the sullen femme with them. "Arcee, you know better than to engage the enemy alone."

"Not her," Arcee growled, ragged breaths coming in loud and clear. Her servos clenched, and Nightstalker recognized a vengeful hatred when she saw one. "Not after what she did to Tailgate."

Tailgate? Nightstalker's memory banks kicked in. The mech she had been tortured with. He was her partner, but with the passion laced beneath that voice, she highly began to suspect him as a former lover.

_ "She will pay."_

"Revenge will not bring back those we have lost," Optimus said gravely, and Nightstalker flinched as if he had struck her. Fli-Ni's shrieks echoed in her mind, and she snarled to herself, servos clenching. "Is that understood?"

Before Arcee could respond, Bulkhead growling, "Move it!" snapped all three of them back to the present. Nightstalker turned, seeing the rest of the guys coming up with Starscream freed of his webbing from only waist down.

He didn't pay Nightstalker any heed, but that was fine. She was too busy fighting her inner demons to actually care that he treated her like air. He merely pleaded that he wanted to turn Autobot, surprisingly enough. He argued that he had nothing left with them; they had never done anything good for him; Megatron tried to extinguish his spark; his had been demoted and Airachnid took his place; left abandoned to die. None of it sounded new to Nightstalker—except Airachnid taking his rank—but tentative efforts were made for the cowardly mech. Much like they had done Nightstalker when she first came into the ranks of the Autobots, they deactivated Starscream's homing signal and weapons, locked him up in stasis cuffs, and tossed him in Optimus's hitch. Even his wings were cuffed—at least he had his peds.

They traveled to the location Starscream pointed out to them, Nightstalker gliding low above the posse of five Autobots. At an unspoken agreement, the bots stopped a good distance away from the other half of the _HARBINGER_ that Nightstalker had seen from above.

"Well," Bulkhead said with real surprise. "Whaddya know?"

"It could still be a trap," Arcee said tersely.

Nightstalker stopped her hovering and landed, spark clenching with unease. Her audio receptors flinched when she heard Optimus's voice say, "Starscream's loyalty to Megatron has always been questionable. If he has truly split from the Decepticons, his knowledge of their agenda could make him a valuable ally."

"You don't mean PERMANENTLY?" Bulkhead repeated incredulously. "You mean the keys to the base and everything?"

Cliffjumper snorted, crossing his arms. "Highly unlikely."

Optimus nodded, duly taking note of the dissent. "However unlikely that scenario," he said, "every sentient being deserves an opportunity for redemption."

Nightstalker cringed again, wingtips perking to the sky. She crossed her arms, clenching her jaw and hands tightly at his grating words. He deserved it! He left him for scrap, even while he begged for help!

"Even bot killers?" Arcee snarled. Her infuriated optics drew up to Optimus. "Even _Airachnid?_"

_Even you!_

"Without that hope," Optimus said gently, "we may never achieve lasting peace."

Nightstalker listened quietly as Starscream pointed the way to the _HARBINGER_. Swallowing around the rage rising in her throat, she was unprepared to hear, "Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Nightstalker, you're with me." Nightstalker looked up in shock. "Arcee, stay with our prisoner."

Arcee raised objections, but Optimus silenced them quickly. As Nightstalker trailed with the mechs, she heard Starscream say, "Is the clamp really necessary? I promise not to fly away. It's really giving me a crick!"

Nightstalker scowled and looked back at him. "Screamer, you're lucky to even have your peds free and your hands in front of you. If you endure that crick for over month, THEN come back and whine to me." She snorted under her breath as she caught up with the other bots. "Wuss."

Cliffjumper grinned at her and put a fist up. Tentatively, Nightstalker sent a grin back and gave him the fist bump.

It was deceivingly taunting to have Optimus's back in front of her the whole time while she held her machine gun OH SO innocently as she "kept alert" for Airachnid. Primus only KNEW how much she wanted to fill the slagger with holes!

As they came upon the _HARBINGER_, Nightstalker fluttered her wings uncertainly. She wanted to look from above. Everything was . . . too high up for anyone to see, even if Airachnid was known to attack from—

Optimus reacted twice as fast as Nightstalker, ducking and tumbling away from a blue laser beam. "Fragging slag!" Nightstalker yelped, backing away and ducking behind a rock.

"I got her!" Bulkhead shouted, moving up the ramp as their helpful punching bag that could take hard hits. However, Nightstalker's jaw gaped when Airachnid's beam hit him and he stopped moving. He just . . . stopped. Froze.

A thought slashed across Nightstalker's mind.

Petrified!

"The Immobilizer!" Nightstalker yipped to the team, recognizing its Decepticon make.

Well, things proceeded treacherously after that. Airachnid had both the fragging Immobilizer AND the high ground, and Nightstalker couldn't risk getting high enough to take a clear shot without letting herself get frozen and face-planted into the ground. Dodging around the laser beams, Nightstalker saw something she would never forget—

Airachnid hit Optimus with the Immobilizer.

Her spark began to pound violently in her chest. Bumblebee and Cliffjumper ducked for cover, but she ran straight towards Optimus as Airachnid gloated, "Tell me, bugs, do you think Megatron will be pleased with his new trophies? He'll probably use the bulky one here for target practice." Nightstalker flinched behind a rock when Airachnid toppled Bulkhead. A knot caught in her throat when Airachnid leapt on top of Optimus. "Prime," she purred. "The true prize. Perhaps he'll adorn the prow of Megatron's warship."

Nightstalker ran out again, hearing Cliffjumper yell for her to stop, but she ignored him. Airachnid pointed the null ray her way, but Nightstalker just stood gaping like a fish at the sight of Optimus. So open. So frozen. So . . .

_Vulnerable._

The Immobilizer quieted its angry whir. "What's this?" Airachnid's velvety voice purred. Nightstalker's optics jumped to her former mentor and back to Optimus, feeling her spark hammering in her chest. "The only time I've seen THAT particular look is whenever Arcee is trying to snuff my spark . . . Tell me, my apprentice, just WHAT could possibly make you look at Optimus like that?"

There was a beat of silence, and then, "Nights?"

Cliffjumper's whisper was nearly nonexistent, but Airachnid open fired above Nightstalker's head. "None of your business," Nightstalker worked out to the Decepticon. Quaking with the opportunity she was presented, Nightstalker put away her machine gun.

Airachnid gave a throaty laugh. "Well, what are you waiting for, my dear? Extract your revenge on him . . ." she gave a muffled laugh, "for whatever it is for."

"Nightstalker, don't!"

Nightstalker whipped around with wide eyes just in time to see Cliffjumper burst from cover and run towards her. The Immobilizer's null ray hit him dead in the chest, stopping him mid-run. The blasts from the staff continued until Bumblebee was also subdued behind a rock.

*Nights!* he cried out. *Don't do it!*

"It's for my brother!" Nightstalker snapped. Control broken, Nightstalker leapt on top of Optimus and leered down at him, face contorting with a hideous snarl. Buried rage of millennia surged up like a black storm to rival even Megatron.

Her orange optics blazed in front of his that were coiling on the inside with shock. Nightstalker sneered down at him, making sure he knew exactly what she meant when she hissed,

_"Save him now, Autobot scum._


	21. Revenge

**Author's Note:**_  
><em>

**"Now there's no holding back, I'm making to attack  
>My blood is singing with your voice, I want to pour it out<br>The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound  
>I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallow'ed ground<strong>

**Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins**  
><strong>I want to find you, tear out all of your tenderness<strong>

**And howl, howl**  
><strong>Howl, howl"<strong>

**_Florence + The Machine_Howl_  
><strong>

* * *

><p><em>"Save him now, Autobot scum."<em>

The horrific realization slowly but surely dawned across the depths of those blue optics. It was morbidly fascinating to watch Optimus try to compute exactly what was happening and why it was happening.

*Nights, please don't—!*

Airachnid growled and turned the Immobilizer on Bumblebee. Nightstalker flinched when bullets rang out, but they weren't aimed for her. After a quick bout, Nightstalker turned to see Bumblebee petrified while running for cover.

A sultry chuckle caught in the back of Airachnid's throat. "All alone, love," she purred to Nightstalker. Nightstalker turned back to Optimus, feeling her spark beating violently in her spark. This was what she wanted—she was going to avenge Fli-Ni!

"What are you waiting for?" Airachnid taunted. She tapped the Immobilizer to Optimus's exposed chest. "He's all yours."

Helpless screams and an explosion rocked in Nightstalker's memory core. Nightstalker ignored Airachnid, baring her teeth at Optimus. She dug her claws into his neck cables.

"Isn't that right, Optimus?" she hissed at his frozen form. "_Kaon_. Do you remember? Who was that poor youngling you left to die?" Nightstalker ripped some of the cables up, earning a deep-set groan from the Autobot she crouched on. She felt his shoulders shudder beneath her peds. "Do you remember? He was just a kid! He was BEGGING you for help! And what do you do?" Nightstalker sank her claws into his neck, face twisting into a snarl as she hissed just inches away from his face,

_"You left him to die."_

Nightstalker savagely pulled up another heap of cables, making another low groan catch in his body. Energon began to pour from his wounds, staining her hands a slick bright blue. "Do you remember!" she shouted at the immobile bot, hot tears of hate and sorrow beading in her optics. She roughly brushed them away, unwittingly smearing his energon there in their place. Transforming the tips of her fingers open, Nightstalker's spark sang in lustful triumph. "_This is for my brother_," she snarled, raising her hand.

She slashed down over his right audio receptor with a vengeance, and the sheer pain she exploited on his hot spot made his frame rock in agony. A high pitched whine shrieked from within his body, and Nightstalker clawed him without mercy, hot lava slowly oozing down his neck.

"Isn't it ironic?" she gloated above his pained whines. "You once preached to Arcee that revenge isn't the right way when you should have been preaching to me!" Nightstalker gave a sick laugh, falling into oblivion. She punctured several claws through that audio receptor, the screams catching inside Optimus's body as he shuddered beneath her.

"Now revenge may not bring me peace . . ." she whispered to him, and she leaned down to the other audio receptor.

"But it sure does bring _satisfaction_."

Fear began to coil in the depths of his crystal blue optics. Nightstalker gave a harsh laugh, eyes glittering like black fire. "How does it feel to be so helpless? What does it feel like to be at my MERCY!" Nightstalker's lava-dripping fingers tore across the middle finial of his helm, and like she had guessed, it was a hot spot too. Optimus's body howled beneath her, the gears shrieking they were trying so hard to move, but the effects of the Immobilizer kept him frozen.

She laughed with sick amusement, feet planted firmly on either side of his broad shoulders as she crouched on him. "Does it hurt?" she asked mockingly. She bared her teeth again, and she plunged her hand into his sensitive neck cables, causing a more potent groan to strangle through his throat as he suffered her punishment.

"Good," she purred to him. Trailing a leisure finger down around his wide optics, she smirked when those optics dilated tight in pain. "Because trust me, it's going to hurt, a lot, MORE!"

Ripping up more of his neck cables, Nightstalker felt his energon gush over her hands and begin to slick her grip. Tossing the parts to the side, she murmured to the helpless Prime, "This should be fun. I get to take you apart piece by piece at my pace, and I get to _play_ with you unlike I've played with others." She let a lip quirk up, and she closed off her fingers that dripped lava. Instead, she dipped her forefinger into Optimus's left eye, greedily drinking in the sight of fear raging inside the depths of those optics.

Optic lubricant began to leak from his eye as she began to apply a small scratch to the delicate material. "I wonder how much I could exploit from just your eyes," she murmured. A sick grin crossed her features. "Or, since the almighty _Primes_ are supposed to be PURE, I bet you would respond well to me violating your interfacing delicates."

At the utter disbelieving horror that rose to the surface of his optics, Nightstalker let herself have a long, triumphant laugh. Slinking a leg down, her flexible body easily making the stretch, Nightstalker chuckled and tapped her ped to his interface paneling. "I'll save the rape for last," she laughed at him, and she instead dug her hand deep into the top of his exposed shoulder wiring. "Then, I'll proceed to rip off said spike." Tearing up more wires, this time Optimus's scream shrieked from within filled with impending terror for her promises to come. "And then I'll take apart your chest and proceed to rape your spark you of your purity again!" She slashed across his ruined audio receptor, causing his body to shriek in protest, but unable to help himself. "Only then will I tear your spark out with my bare hands and crush it in my grip!"

Slicing through more cables in his shoulders, Nightstalker scowled when she heard the screech of his vocals unable to properly say words as he tried to scream. "If only you could _scream_," she hissed, forcibly restraining from tearing apart his other audio receptor—he had to hear her gloating as she killed him. "What would you say, I wonder?" Toying with him more, Nightstalker let one of her whips dangle out and activate with the menacing sound of electricity. The high volts would cripple him. "Would you beg for my mercy?" Sneering, Nightstalker brought the whip down hard on the Prime's back. Optimus's body howled in protest, unable to move from his crucified position, arms spread. "Plead forgiveness?" The thought just made the hate surge more. Snarling again, Nightstalker slammed the whip down harder, and another helpless shriek echoed from Optimus's body. "Would you want me to stop, or just put you out of your _misery!"_ Slashing the electrical whip down with all her might across his back again, she relished in the sounds of his screams that she coaxed out. A Prime—brought low enough by her to scream and fear like he had never felt the cold grip of terror. That rising panic the Prime was feeling brightened his optics until painful to look at, and she felt him trembling beneath her peds.

"A pity I can't make you beg like Fli-Ni did," she hissed, digging her fingers into his helm. A heavy groan emitted from his chest, straining against the petrification. "Help me, Optimus," she mocked cruelly, "help me. Help me, PLEASE." Nightstalker slashed roughly across his face, making a cry catch inside him. "You just turned and ran like a pit-spawned coward! You let that bloody fragger—that Decepticon just—"

Nightstalker felt herself choke on her vengeful tirade. She froze, lava slowly dripping on Optimus's shoulder as she looked down on his crystal blue optics tight with pain.

Her lips trembled. "That . . . Decepticon . . ."

Primus knew Optimus's back stood so clearly in her memory banks, engraved there by years of hatred, but the Decepticon seeker she had all but forgotten . . . As she tried to remember it, she drew up a hazy fog in her mind, a void that couldn't be filled with anything but the sound of a high-pitched voice shrieking with delight, _"Save him now, Autobot scum!"_

The tips of her fingers transformed shut, and Nightstalker gasped, catching herself from falling by gripping Optimus's shoulders. He was looking at her, face so close she could have kissed him, but Nightstalker was busy groping through her mind's eye for the picture of that seeker, but it was gone, just an elusive miasma that slipped like silk.

Yes, Optimus had run, but he had run because there had been no time. Nightstalker shuddered, remembering the blast that had nearly taken her too, and she had barely gotten three strides closer. Which meant Optimus had barely gotten three strides to safety while Fli-Ni was still three strides away and closer to the bomb.

Nightstalker gasped thinly, fingers clenching Optimus's metal as she quaked hunched over him. Optic lubricant welled up. He . . . couldn't have done anything. The only thing in trying to save Fli-Ni any further than what he had would have only ended in his death. It . . . It . . .

"It's not your fault," she whispered hoarsely, so quietly she barely heard herself.

She heard Airachnid's multiple legs clicking as she turned around. "What?"

Nightstalker shuddered in a horrified breath, tears streaming down her face. "It's not your fault," she rasped again, covering her mouth.

A furious snarl slashed through her revelation.

Nightstalker screamed when one of Airachnid's legs snapped around her throat. She slung her to the dirt, and Nightstalker gasped when she hit the unforgiving ground hard, sensitive wings echoing her pain.

Nightstalker shrieked when each of Airachnid's legs pinned her like a bug, and one pressed so hard against her throat Nightstalker was sure she was trying to suffocate her. "You little glitch!" she hissed, and Nightstalker screamed in terror when venom seeped from Airachnid's teeth. "Traitor!" Nightstalker choked on a scream when Airachnid's leg began to splinter the weaker metal of her neck. "I'll kill you for this you weak, incompetent whore!" Nightstalker howled in pain when the venom dripped on her metal, feeling the fires of pain tear through her systems, and choking on the pressure that closed off her throat. Nightstalker struggled for breath, unable to lift her arms to defend herself when Airachnid's legs pinned her down. The smell of burned metal filled her nasal sensors, and she felt Airachnid's hands grip her jaw.

Infuriated purple optics seethed at her. "But I won't kill you yet. Not until I've made sure you've suffered the consequences." Nightstalker whimpered in terror when Airachnid forced her mouth open, and she chuckled darkly. "How about a kiss?" she crooned, and Nightstalker twisted, shrieking with hysterics. The lethal venom began to froth thicker in her mouth for preparation of helping her drink it.

A flash of yellow and then Nightstalker gasped in a cycle of air to help her systems recalibrate when Airachnid went flying. The Immobilizer popped from her grip, and pulling herself up to hands and knees, Nightstalker saw Bumblebee's lasers shatter the precious item. Airachnid howled in rage and transformed, fleeing.

Nightstalker shivered, optic lubricant seeping down her cheeks. Clutching herself, she felt Bumblebee scoop her up quickly, chirping, *I'm sorry, Nights, I'm sorry, she kept looking at me. She kept looking and I only had one chance . . . She was on to me, I'm sorry, if I moved earlier, she would have got me with the Immobilizer, I'm sorry . . .*

Nightstalker began to sob, literally shaking so hard she couldn't control it. Bumblebee gave her a squeeze and a sad whir, stammering, *Nights, I have to go a second. Arcee—I keep getting distress signals from her—Please, I'll—I'll be right back, I promise—!*

He let her go, and she heard his transformation and his engine rev loud as he took off to help Arcee. Nightstalker collapsed at Optimus's feet, weeping.

Primus, what a fool she had made of herself! Worse than a fool, a wretch. A disgusting, pathetic, moronic wretch. Nightstalker shuddered with tears soaking the dry ground.

How stupid could one get! Why hadn't she thought through what had really happened that day? Why had she let herself go feral like that, turning into some primitive animal for revenge? She was better than . . . that—Fli-Ni would despise her! Nightstalker sobbed harder, clutching Optimus's foot in a wordless plead for clemency she didn't deserve.

"I'm sorry . . ." The words were naught but a rasp in her mouth, and she wasn't sure if Optimus could even hear her above his own pain, but she wept tears on his foot until she felt like she wasn't even good enough to touch him. Letting go and pressing her face into the dirt he stood on, she gasped, "I'm—I'm sorry! I'm sorry . . ." And what for? She didn't deserve forgiveness. Not after . . . after . . .

_"What?"_

Nightstalker didn't even flinch at Arcee's odious voice. *Arcee, wait—*

"She did this to him!"

The next second happened so quickly Nightstalker couldn't keep up with it. One moment she heard running, the next she heard a gun cock and angrily whir, and then she was scooped into Bumblebee's chest, arms clutching around her protectively.

"Get out of the way, Bumblebee!"

*No!* he shouted back, and Nightstalker stopped her pointless crying in shock to try to look at Arcee, but her line of sight was blocked by Bumblebee's shoulder. *I won't let you!*

"You see what she did to Optimus!" Arcee snarled, bitterness overlapping an exhausted voice. "She can NOT live for that."

*What did Optimus always say about revenge?* Bumblebee pleaded desperately. *He wouldn't let you do it either, Arcee, he—*

"This isn't revenge!" she shot back, trembling in anticipation of the attack. "This. Is JUSTICE."

*No it's not!* Bumblebee fought, voice quavering with the threat of tears. Nightstalker leaned tiredly on his chest, drained of any fight. *You know it's not, Arcee, don't do this! She's my sister, you couldn't possibly—*

"She's a fragging Decepticon!" Arcee shouted, voice cracking with raw emotion. "She tricked us all, just to get a close shot at Optimus!"

*That's not true and you know it!* Bumblebee cried back angrily, the foreboding whine of Arcee's guns underlying their spat. *Arcee, if she was a traitor, she would have killed Optimus back when he had the Plague!*

"Bumblebee, get out of the way!"

*NO!* Bumblebee trembled as he held her, arms tightening. *I won't do it! If you want her you'll have to go through me!*

"I said MOVE!"

*I won't! Arcee, she's my SISTER!*

The silence pounded for long seconds. Nightstalker heard Arcee's heavy gasps and felt Bumblebee's tiny tremble as he held her. Finally, the hideous whir of the gun stopped, and Bumblebee slumped over her, holding her tight.

*I won't let them hurt you* he whispered, and by the way he was pressing his face to hers, Nightstalker realized that he was trying to put kisses on her. *You knew what was right, and you freely didn't do it. I KNOW you're good. I won't let them hurt you . . .*

Moving the petrified Autobots into the silo was tedious, especially Optimus. Ratchet received Nightstalker's handiwork much like Arcee had, and after Bumblebee fought and pleaded again, using his own body as protection, the two healthy bots began to move the others back into the base. Bumblebee rushed back out for Nightstalker since she merely sat on the ground, unwilling to help herself.

Ratchet repaired Arcee first as she was in the worst condition next to Optimus. He left Nightstalker's wounds to fester, but that was all right with Nightstalker. Let them fester. It reminded her of all the venom wounds she had left in Cliffjumper, and she felt like she deserved it. Ratchet also repaired the Immobilizer in a snap, the damage merely superficial. Bumblebee held Nightstalker protectively from the others, soothingly kneading that upper spot between her two wings, but it failed to calm her.

When Ratchet reversed the Immobilizer, he did each Autobot in turn, warning them to be careful that their full range of movement would come back within the hour. However, when he released Optimus from his petrified prison, an agonized whine filled the room.

Optimus pitched to his hands and knees, one servo clutching at the side of his helm as if to stop the bleeding. His weak, trembling and wordless cry punctuated the horrified silence for the Autobots to see their leader brought so low, shaking in pain that he couldn't control. Energon seeped between his fingers, and dried lava cracked free. Another agonized moan escaped his lips before he could stop it.

Nightstalker shrank into Bumblebee, shivering delicately. She felt her joints freeze up with dread for what was to come. Optimus quickly regained control of himself and put on his leader façade, but he was clearly in excruciating pain, cringing much more than usual as Ratchet quickly tried to repair the damage. However, before Ratchet was finished, Optimus waved him off. The medic barked that he was in charge, but Optimus leveled a serious look that silenced even him.

Meekly awaiting her execution, Nightstalker trembled, plucking weakly at Bumblebee's chest. She felt his arms tighten around her as Optimus's heavy footfalls cut the palpable silence, and she heard Bumblebee whisper, *Please . . . Optimus please, she didn't mean . . . It wasn't . . . Optimus, have mercy, please . . .*

Nightstalker squeezed her eyes shut, but those heavy steps hadn't wavered a moment. Instinctively she fluttered her wings, dreading to see the cold ice in his optics that could cut through steel.

*Optimus, _please_* Bumblebee pleaded quietly, a desperate tone lacing his voice. *I know she—But she didn't do it in the end, that's got to account for something . . .* His voice hitched painfully, and Nightstalker felt him squeeze tighter, hands gripping her with fear. He scooped her closer, protecting her from his coming leader. *Optimus, please—*

"Let go of her, Bumblebee," Optimus ordered quietly, and the coldly severe tone of his voice caused Nightstalker to wince and whimper. Bumblebee only held her tighter, a hand pressing her helm to his chest. Nightstalker's sensors could faintly pick up his racing spark beneath his armor.

*Optimus, please, I'm begging you, have mercy!* Bumblebee's shaking heightened. *Please, Optimus, please, I'll do anything! She—She's my sister, Optimus, my sister, please—!*

"Bumblebee."

Nightstalker felt a hitch splay through Bumblebee's systems. She felt her wings flutter, but she knew Bumblebee. He was loyal—he could never disobey Optimus.

His protective arms fell from around her.


	22. Punishment

Complete silence blanketed the room, heavy, and stifling. Nightstalker clutched Bumblebee's chest, but the mech was bound by his loyalty to his leader, and could offer no comfort in return. Her wings fluttered in a frenzy.

Finally, he spoke. "Nightstalker." She flinched into Bumblebee's chest, hearing a faint whir of concern from Bumblebee's vocals. "Face me."

After jaw-grinding reluctance, Nightstalker forced herself to turn around, but she still couldn't look at him straight—not after what she had done to him. Nightstalker gripped Bumblebee's knees tightly, shallow breaths cycling in and out of her systems as she stared at Optimus's peds.

His hard voice spoke again. "Look at me."

Her breathing began to hiss audibly between her teeth. After a space of time of just working up the last scraps of courage, Nightstalker bent her head backwards and looked up at him.

Her claw marks stood out vividly on the front of Optimus's helm, and she cringed seeing his ruined audio receptor. Traces of solidified lava were still caught in the grates of his metal. His own energon was spattered down his front, and it still stained Nightstalker's hands.

Nightstalker tried to keep her optics level with his, but they were so cold she couldn't bear them. Sucking in a weak gasp, Nightstalker dropped her head in shame, optic lubricant welling up. She blinked rapidly. Her cooling fans kicked on to compensate for her rushing energon and fear.

Optimus spoke again, voice severe and flat. "I brought you into this base with great reluctance, Nightstalker. You were a Decepticon, and the one who tortured Cliffjumper within an inch of his life." Nightstalker recoiled like it had been a slap in the face. "However, I held fast to one hope—you were also the one who saved him.

"I believed in the traces of good I found within you," Optimus stated, voice hollow. The sheer impact of his indifferent tone sliced across Nightstalker's countenance because any drop of warmth was gone, leaving nothing but cold disregard. "I was proved correct when you showed courage saving our human friends, and meshed well with my soldiers."

There was a pause. "And then, this." Nightstalker flinched, servos spasmodically gripping and releasing Bumblebee's knees. "Nightstalker, your crimes this day are of the highest treason." Her breathing cycles hitched painfully, and Nightstalker fanned her wings desperately, struggling to keep herself from hyperventilating. "This kind of treason is punished by nothing short of termination."

Bumblebee cut in with a sob. *Optimus, PLEASE—!*

"Silence." His word wasn't cruel to Bumblebee, but tired and resigned. The scout bottled up his objections, but Nightstalker felt him shudder with tears. Still, Optimus's warning kept him on a tight leash—though his hands twitched with the urge, he didn't touch her.

Nightstalker braced herself for the end, but Optimus didn't stop there. "You attacked me," he continued relentlessly, "while I was incapable of defending myself, a deed that is the mark of Decepticons." Nightstalker winced at each lethally accurate observation. "You employed skills upon me that are torture tactics. You threatened me, you spat my teachings in my face, you were intent on snuffing my spark—

"And you did not kill me."

Nightstalker swallowed, wings waving restlessly. He let his words sink in, and then continued.

"Once again, you showed that side of you that pressed upon me to give you a chance. That mark of good shone again; you did not follow through with your diabolical plan, and you stopped of your own free will. You wept at my feet." Optimus paused, and a frustrated breath vented heavily from him. "For this, I revoke the punishment of termination to give you a second chance."

Bumblebee was openly crying with relief behind her, trying a bit unsuccessfully to tone it down. Nightstalker looked up in shock, but the sorrow in Optimus's optics made the fires of guilt blaze inside her. She looked away, unable to keep his gaze.

"The penalty for your treason is as follows," Optimus stated, and Nightstalker braced herself for it. "Manual labor will be your designation around the base. You will cut, weld, and repair anything Ratchet demands of you for the next six weeks, and you will follow his orders with swiftness and thoroughness. Your weapons will be permanently offlined until I deem you credible to wield them again. You are not permitted to speak through the private line on the communicator. For the next six weeks you will be confined to the base, and you will fly none. You—"

Panic tore through her. "No!" she burst before she could stop herself, leaping to her feet. "I can't possibly—I can't do that! You can't do that! Please—!"

Nightstalker choked on her pleas from the strict gaze that shuttered his optics. Trembling in agonizing hysteria of the long weeks to come, Nightstalker sank to the floor. SIX WEEKS. She had barely been able to endure a month when she was a prisoner of the Autobots, but SIX? She tried desperately to control her gasping.

"For the next six weeks," Optimus repeated sternly, "you will be confined to the base and fly none. For each time you break this charge, another two weeks will be added." Nightstalker began to rock in terror of enduring that long of time without flying, weeping gasps catching in her vocals.

Optimus gazed down with meticulous indifference. "And lastly," he continued, "because you have broken our trust so severely, you will work for our trust until you have proven yourself worthy of receiving it again. This is my word as a Prime, and you shall abide by it."

Nightstalker trembled. She flinched when Optimus knelt down, but he merely offlined her weapons as he said, and then she felt him work her communicator until it was impossible for her to access anyone's private line. Then, he backed away and stated, "Remove yourself from my presence."

Nightstalker felt the hot tears coming. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she tried to hold back the crying surging up inside, and she felt Bumblebee's hands take her, helping her. *Come on* he whispered gently, steering her towards the halls.

"She will go alone."

Bumblebee froze, and then his hands dropped from her. *Optimus, please* he begged, big blue eyes filling with optic lubricant. *Please, she needs me. Please, just let me—*

"This is _her_ punishment," Optimus reprimanded him gently but sternly, "not yours." Nightstalker felt the wetness spill down her cheeks. "She will endure it alone—"

Nightstalker ran, hysterics rising quickly. She was already sobbing as she ran down the halls, staggering blindly through a film of tears, and she slammed against the walls as she groped her way to her bunk. Flinging the door open and slamming it shut behind her, Nightstalker threw herself down on her ragged berth and just barely managed to offline her vocals before she howled to the heavens.

Optimus watched her flee from the room. She cried in shame, and he heard her hit several walls because she stumbled. His spark clenched again.

Silence fell over the room. "You were too easy on her," he heard Ratchet mutter. "It should have been two months at the least . . ."

"You are not to question my judgment," Optimus stated mechanically. He returned to the medical berth, tilting his head for Ratchet to continue his ministrations to the throbbing wounds on his helm. The pain absolutely pulsed in agony, and currently, his right audio receptor was shorted out.

Bumblebee was the next to speak, as Optimus had guessed. *How could you . . .*

Anger and tears laced his thick voice, and Optimus heaved a tired sigh, vents pushing out a hiss of air. "Bumblebee, the same goes for you."

*You could have at least let me stay with her!* he burst, voice breaking. His hands clenched, and then, it all drained out of him. His arms and hands fell limp, and his door wings drooped until they sagged against his body. *You could have . . . just let me . . . Please . . .*

Bulkhead clenched his hands, shaking his head. "Bumblebee, how can you keep siding with her? Did you even HEAR what was happening? I couldn't see it, but by PRIMUS I could hear it, everything she said, the sounds Optimus made—"

*I saw it!* Bumblebee exploded, whirling angrily on Bulkhead. His wings snapped straight and his eyes dilated. *I saw it, the gore, the energon, everything!* He trembled before his wings wilted again, and he crossed his arms. *I know*

The dissident silo quieted again. Finally, a serious voice asked, "Hey, Optimus? How you holding up?"

Optimus looked up at Cliffjumper who was uncharacteristically quiet, and he caught the many layers hidden beneath his simple question.

"I will be fine," he said instead, giving a faint nod to him as Ratchet worked.

An ironic smile tipped Cliffjumper's lips. "She's quiet terrifying once she shows how ruthless she can be, isn't she?" he said with a slight drip of bravado. His lips twitched impassive again, and Cliffjumper swallowed, wetting his lips. "You sure you're all right?" he asked his leader again.

Optimus's optics warmed faintly with Cliffjumper's concern. "I will be," he said tiredly again. Cliffjumper nodded and dropped his optics, a hand kneading behind his neck. Optimus studied the mech closer. Clearly, he was still overcoming his ordeal so many months back. After enduring only Nightstalker's lava and whips for minutes compared to what she could do to him for hours, much less days, he felt his respect for Cliffjumper grow.

Optimus let a deep, concerned rumble vibrate from his chest when one voice, the most vocal, failed to respond. "And . . . Arcee?" he asked Ratchet softly.

He didn't pause in his work, but replied, "She's rather resilient . . . for a two wheeler."

Optimus cut his optics over to glance at her hunched form. "It is the external wounds which heal the quickest," he said quietly.

Arcee glanced back at them, and she took a shuddering breath. "I thought settling scores would help me to move on," she murmured. "But I guess I was wrong." She dropped her head in shame. "Instead I chased away any chance we had of winning this war anytime soon."

A depression of air hissed agitatedly from Optimus's vents. "Wisdom cannot be granted, Arcee, it must be earned." He stiffened when Ratchet probed a sore spot, and he closed his optics, grieving for the femme in the back. "Sometimes, at a cost . . ."

He clashed in a war with himself. He now, more than ever, wished that he could go back to that moment and save that poor boy whose bright, desperate optics he had never forgotten—Nightflier. Nightstalker's bigger brother. A guilty weight pressed upon his spark, but Optimus's logical side argued that even if he had tried harder to save him, he would have only ended up perishing with him.

_It's not your fault._

Optimus breathed deeply, quelling his emotions trapped in turmoil. As much as he wished, he could not change the past. He could only embrace the present and hope for the future. He lifted a prayer to Primus for Nightstalker, and thanked her internally for sparing him and seeing the error of all their ways.

His spark gave an uncomfortable squeeze. He was surprised she hadn't thought of it yet, but he knew she would soon.

_Save him now, Autobot scum!_

The high-pitched mech's voice echoed tauntingly in Optimus's mind, and he tried to shake the memory of the seeker that had truly been the one to murder Nightflier. Nightstalker would want to know who he was, and then, her lust for revenge would be reignited and know no bounds. He prayed to Primus that he would cleanse her soul of that plight so she wouldn't end up embittered like Arcee, laden down with the past. She had to let go . . .

His thoughts returned to his decision on her punishment. Ratchet wanted more—Bumblebee wanted less. In truth, Optimus had originally begun to think as Ratchet had said, but . . .

His spark thundered in his chest. He could still hear her weeping, the desperate clasp on his foot as she literally wept tears over his ped, not begging for forgiveness, but just so sorry she couldn't say anything else. Not as haunting, but just as hard to bear, was the echoing sounds of her terrified screams when Airachnid had attacked her, that moment where Optimus had been powerless to help and certain that Nightstalker was going to die at his feet pleading for forgiveness. That hideous sound where she was screaming and choking at the same time . . .

Optimus breathed deeply, stilling his embroiled emotions. Perhaps he was too compassionate. He had been accused of it several times as a disciple of Primus, but . . . The sounds of suffering always stirred his mercy, a sympathy he showed to everyone, even his greatest enemy.

And even as he went about all these thoughts in his head, contemplating every angle, he found he stood with his original decision even stronger. Thus, as Ratchet put the finishing touches on his repaired audio receptor, readying him for testing it out, Optimus gave grace to Primus and prayed for Nightstalker once more.

After all . . . Teaching a lesson was no easy pain to bear, and Optimus felt his sorrow overflow once more.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**It was a bit short . . .**

**WARNING! THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL CONTAIN SMUT!**

**So if you don't like it, don't read it. K?**

**Now, you don't have to keep reading this, but if you do, great! Since this chapter is so short, I'll share with you guys where the idea of "Fraternizing" came from.**

**Nightstalker was originally an OC named Teardown, a pink Jeep, sister to Breakdown. There was also originally two OCs, Teardown one, Abby the other. Abby was my human, blond hair, blue eyes, liked to read, ballet, a typical girl you can find. Abby became Ratchet's human though she was always jealous of Raf because he seemed to get along better with Ratchet than she did. Abby liked to write, so she wrote passages about the Autobots that they were all impressed with. Abby began to look up to Ratchet as a father figure, and he realized why when they finally uncovered that Abby was an abused child by her father, her mother being a victim of abuse too. Abby begged the Autobots to stay out of it, claiming it was her fight, and since they respected her they did . . . for a little bit. Her father tracked her to the Autobot base by means of her cell phone, and when he only saw the vehicles, he beat her some right there and dragged her off home. Needless to say, pissed Autobots, Fowler helping press charges, but before the legalities were over with, Abby decided to stay overnight with Ratchet for comfort. Next morning she found out her father had accidentally burned the house down in a drunken stupor and killed himself and her mother. Since Abby was of legal age and a freshman in college, she simply moved into the base with the Autobots.**

**Teardown was a bulky pink femme and sister of Breakdown, sought after by Knockout to bang her, but she always refused him. She was always enamored with Soundwave. Still, her loyalties switched with whoever was on top, so after Megatron was lost during the 5th episode, Soundwave bought her loyalty by interfacing with her . . . but Teardown was smart and said those nights had to continue.**

**Eventually she began to think she was in love with Soundwave. She was caught in a skirmish with Optimus during the time Breakdown died, and she went into a kinda "spark shock" type thing where she was willing to die with Breakdown (someone had the idea of "spark shock" and I can't remember who it was . . . drat) Optimus took pity on her and brought her to Ratchet to see if he could help her, but and after careful consideration, the doc bot reported she could only be saved if someone spark bonded with her and pulled her out of the darkness. No one was willing . . . save for one Autobot.**

**Teardown wakes up furious that the Autobots helped her and fled. She comes back to the Decepticons and Soundwave notices her odd behavior, but doesn't comment (of course) but Teardown finds her loyalties between Autobots and Decepticons wavering because she feels the Autobot that bonded with her trying to change her spark. Teardown believes the bot Optimus and ferociously battles with him every time she can find him. She delves more into Soundwave believing she loves him, but when Megatron has enough of her wavering loyalties, he sends Soundwave to kill her. Soundwave is thwarted by the Autobots, and Teardown is once again taken in and healed by Ratchet.**

**Teardown unwillingly changes sides, and she eventually realizes that it wasn't Optimus that bonded with her, it was Ratchet. Optimus had been the one willing to bond with her just to save her, but Ratchet refused to let his leader do it and instead bonded with Teardown because if it came to it that they had to kill Teardown, Ratchet didn't want Optimus crippled from losing a spark mate. After a long time, Teardown finds she likes the Autobots, and eventually, curious at the cynical medical assistant that had bonded with her too keep her alive, runs everyone from the silo and has rather a . . . rather ANGRY interface with Ratchet and after a couple more interfaces, they both stop denying that as bonded they have to stop fighting each other. And besides . . . they both really did like one another.**

**In all, it was a VERY smutty fic that I'm glad I didn't like, though I did like several things. ****As to how TEARDOWN became NIGHTSTALKER . . . Teardown was the one that brought Cliffjumper to Starscream, and there was something in the way she pitied Cliffjumper's death that I wondered what would happen if she somehow kept him alive . . . torture for information seemed the only logical thought, and then torture didn't suit Teardown's personality so I changed every bit of her and Nightstalker came to be. I played with the idea some, liked it better . . .**

**And here we are today :D**


	23. The Fight Inside

**Author's Note:**

**This chapter is (was) ****exactly 5000 words. Besides that, this chapter is very special to me. Written while listening to "Fight Inside" by _Red_**

**This is one of the poor chapters that had to have its content cut. I don't think the full impact of it will hit when I cut the scene short, so PM me if you want the full impact. Otherwise, enjoy.**

* * *

><p>"Save him now, Autobot scum."<p>

_He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This couldn't be true. But by the way her orange optics blazed with heartfelt agony, Optimus slowly began to realize what this was all about. Her cold shoulder to him. Her sometimes barely suppressed anger. An almost forgotten explosion suddenly rocked in his mental processor, and the tiny youngling trapped beneath the beam screamed for help again._

_ His body tensed as he felt her digging her hands into his neck cables. "Isn't that right, Optimus?" she hissed at him. "_Kaon._ Do you remember? Who was that poor youngling you left to die?"_

_ Before he could even begin to think of a response, her hand closed and ripped up a handful of his cables. The fire that raced up his shoulder was so unsuspecting that a deep-set groan escaped him before he could stop it, shoulders shuddering. "Do you remember? He was just a kid! He was BEGGING you for help! And what do you do?" She sank her claws into his neck, face twisting into a hideous snarl he had never seen her use._

_ Unable to move, petrified to helpless, Optimus could only stare into those hateful orange optics as she hissed, "_You left him to die."

_ She savagely pulled up another heap of cables, and feeling his body parts ripped free, Optimus groaned again. He felt bright blue energon begin to trickle down his chest, and his reeling processor tried to understand, to comprehend her sudden brutality._

_ "Do you remember!" she shouted at him, and Optimus felt that horror clench his chest again when he saw hot tears fill her optics, hate and sorrow raging inside her. She roughly brushed them away, and when she did, Optimus saw his own energon smear across her face in their place._

_ This was unreal. But he felt his spark contracting in horrific realization that the boy he had turned from to save himself had been HER brother; of any bot it could have been, fate twisted the bends of time so that it was HER brother. Seeing the shadows of brokenness hidden beneath the fire of hate, Optimus felt his spark clench for Nightstalker's sufferings._

I'm sorry! I'm so sorry—!

_ She lifted her hand, tips of her claws transforming open. _"This is for my brother," _she snarled, and before Optimus could try to say anything, she slashed down over his right audio receptor._

_ Agony ripped across his sensors. Like hot acid had been poured over his hot spot, Optimus felt his body tensing, clenching as he tried to throw himself away from the danger, but he was frozen solid by the Immobilizer. He felt himself scream at the sudden onslaught of pain, but it couldn't truly escape his vocals since he was frozen. A high pitched whine shrieked from within his body as Nightstalker clawed him without mercy, hot lava slowly oozing down his neck._

_ "Isn't it ironic?" she gloted above his pained whines. "You once preached to Arcee that revenge isn't the right way when you should have been preaching to me!" She gave a sick laugh, unlike the shy Nightstalker Optimus had come to know in the base. She was . . . different, and cruel on a level he hadn't expected from her demur personality._

_ Was this the sadistic side of Nightstalker that left Cliffjumper begging for mercy?_

_ Nightstalker punctured her claws through the same audio receptor, and Optimus couldn't stop the scream that rocked his frame, struggling to move, to stop her from doing something she would regret—_

_ But instead, she merely leaned down to his good audio receptor, whispering maliciously, "Now revenge may not bring me peace . . . but it sure does bring _satisfaction."

_ No . . ._

_ He felt the fear snaking its way through his body as he stared utterly helpless up at Nightstalker's sneer. He couldn't move! He couldn't do anything to protect himself, and his fellow Autobots were just as pinned as he was. He would be tortured to death right in front of them, and there wasn't a thing he could do! By the All Spark, he couldn't even try to talk Nightstalker out of it! He could only try to trust in Nightstalker's better reasoning, but even that faint hope was crushed as she continued to toy with him._

_ "How does it feel to be so helpless?" she taunted him with a harsh laugh, optics glittering with a touch of hidden insanity he had never seen before. "What does it feel like to be at my MERCY!" Her lava-dripping fingers tore across the middle finial of his helm, and Optimus screamed again, shocked that she somehow guessed exactly where another hot spot was. Agony crippled his senses—warning signals were fast and furious across his optics, but he stared past them, horrified to see Nightstalker ENJOYING his pain._

_ She was LAUGHING with sick amusement, taking in his sufferings like her greatest triumph. Staring powerlessly as she asked mockingly, "Does it hurt?" he could only groan deeply again when she plunged her hand in his neck cables, fingers digging around deep. Energon pulsed up from the wounds._

_ His sound of pain only egged her on. "Good," she purred, so sickly-sweet that it nauseated the Prime. She trailed a leisure finger around his wide open optics, and Optimus felt his optics tighten in pain as the lava ate through his metal slowly, like cheese. "Because, trust me, it's going to hurt, a lot, MORE!"_

_ She ripped up more of his neck cables, and Optimus groaned loudly, gears shrieking in protest as he tried so hard to get away and couldn't move! Struggling to bring his arms in, he felt every gear in his body twist with the effort to close them and grab Nightstalker, but nothing happened._

_ Nothing._

_ IMMOBILIZED._

_ She dipped a finger in his optic, slowly scratching the sensitive surface, and Optimus felt optic lubricant begin to leak. "I wonder how much I could exploit from just your eyes," she mused to herself, untroubled by what she was doing to him. Optimus tried to speak again, but it was no use—he couldn't properly speak while his jaw was frozen with the rest of his body. The wordless pleas were trapped inside him._

I'm sorry, Nightstalker! Please, understand—!

_He felt his thoughts freeze when a sick grin crossed her features. "Or, since the almighty _Primes_ are supposed to be PURE, I bet you would respond well to me violating your interfacing delicates."_

_Her disgusting words hit like a punch in the gut, stunning him with so much disbelieving horror that he just COULDN'T begin to comprehend what she was saying. She wouldn't . . ._

_ But, his most shadowed hopes of her good side shattered when she let out a long, triumphant laugh. Optimus's mind closed in on itself. He began to writhe on the inside, vainly struggling against his petrification, eyes widening in horror. She wouldn't, she wouldn't—! A rape to settle the fate of her brother? But he felt her ped slide down to tap at his interface paneling, laughing with pure glee, "I'll save the rape for last," as if it would ease his panicking processor._

_ No! She couldn't! _Nightstalker, please no! Don't do it!_ He didn't care that he was trying to plead for her to stop. He WANTED to plead for her, because no matter how he tried to think of her as dirty 'Con scum again, he couldn't. He kept thinking to how she had saved Jack, Raf, and Miko despite the hard beating she had taken, he kept remembering her playing and becoming friends with his soldiers, how meek and wretched she had felt after she had tortured Cliffjumper, her cowering with fear in her cuffs, and the peaceful look on her face after she had flown for the first time in weeks. This wasn't Nightstalker! She had to be in there, she had to be there, somewhere—!_

_ But Optimus found himself proved wrong again as she plunged her hand into his exposed shoulder wiring, optics darkening suddenly as she bared her teeth at him. "Then, I'll proceed to rip off said spike." She tore up more wires, and this time Optimus's scream shrieked from within, filled with impending terror of her promises to come. She MEANT them. She was going to DO what she said. "And then I'll take apart your chest proceed to rape your spark of your purity again!" She slashed across his ruined audio receptor, and Optimus howled again, helpless beneath her heel of mercy—_

_ Mercy she didn't possess. Staring up at her orange optics, dancing with the devil inside them, Optimus felt the impossibility of the situation shatter what was left of his hope of her._

_ "Only then will I tear your spark out with my bare hands and crush it in my grip!"_

_ Slicing through more cables in his shoulders, Optimus felt his body shriek in protest, pleading words caught in his throat. She had to stop this! She had to stop! A growl rose up through his chest, filled with pain and resistance, but Nightstalker merely scowled, dissatisfied._

_ "If only you could SCREAM," she hissed, forcibly restraining from tearing apart his other audio receptor—he knew why. She wanted him to hear her gloating and her taunting as she tortured him to a slow death. "What would you say, I wonder?" Nightstalker toyed with him more, and he saw movement from the corner of his optic. The sound of dangerous, humming electricity filled his ears, and Optimus felt cold fear grip him fast._

_ THIS was the true Nightstalker. Why had he believed differently? Why couldn't he have seen it! Drowning in resentfulness, Optimus pulled and jerked and writhed against the invisible force holding him, but he couldn't get free no matter what he did._

_ "Would you beg for my mercy?"_

_ A hideous leer warped her face beyond what he knew. He saw her electrically charged whip fall, and then, fire raced up his back while the thousands of charged volts unleashed themselves through his system. Optimus screamed in protest, truly fearful of her as he couldn't move himself from his crucified position, arms spread wide for the easy kill._

Nightstalker, no! Please, don't do it! PLEASE!

_ She continued without pause though, optics dilating extremely tight in fury as she worked her haunted past to her benefit. "Plead forgiveness?" The whip slammed down harder, and another helpless shriek echoed from Optimus's body as he was brought low by someone half his size, and yet so deadly. "Would you want me to stop, or just put you out of your MISERY!" She slashed the electrical whip down with all her might, and Optimus screamed freely again, trying to arch away from the pain that exploded across his back, but he couldn't move! The infuriating thought that he couldn't move even though nothing held him frustrated him to no end as he trembled beneath Nightstalker, optics bright with fear and pain._

_ "A pity I can't make you beg like Fli-Ni did," she hissed, digging her fingers into his helm. A heavy groan emitted from his chest, straining against the petrification. His thoughts mimicked his weakened body, pleading and pleading for her to stop, but she couldn't hear him._

_ "Help me, Optimus," she mocked cruelly, "help me. Help me, PLEASE." She slashed roughly across his face, making a cry catch inside him._

_ His spark howled. _I DO want to help you!

_"You just turned and ran like a pit-spawned coward! You let that bloody Decepticon waltz right in and kill him! My BROTHER!_

I'M SORRY! _Optimus felt himself yell at her, but nothing. His mouth was fused, and he couldn't speak no matter what he tried! _I'm sorry, Nightstalker! Please, forgive me!

_Her blazing orange optics narrowed, as if sensing his unspoken words, and she hissed, "It's too late for forgiveness. You'll die by my hand, Optimus Prime, and you will pay for your sins!"_

_ Nightstalker's lava-dripping fingers clawed into his other audio receptor, and Optimus felt himself scream in utter agony, gears shrieking from within as he tried to move away. Held fast to his cross of Immobilization, Optimus felt his optics dilate tight, staring at the sky above._

_ Nightstalker? He couldn't see her. Where had—_

_ Panic exploded in his system when he felt her fingers probing at the metal plating that covered his interfacing system. No—NO! This wasn't how it happened! She realized her folly! She didn't—_

_ "Open up," she cajoled up to him. "You wouldn't like it if I opened these up."_

_ He was still Immobilized! Terrified at what would happen next, Optimus thrashed against the invisible force that held him, but he couldn't budge one inch. His spark froze when Nightstalker spoke again._

_ "Oh well. Don't say I didn't warn you."_

_ There was a beat where he heard it—metal on metal—and then, AGONY._

_ He screamed, loud and clear, howling in desperation as he felt a sharp blade hack through the paneling, tearing it up and out of the way as she forced her way to his spike that fell free. _Primus, help me, please! _The exposure made a wall of drenching shame crash over him._

_ "Nightstalker, don't do this, please!"_

_ She scoffed. "Or what?" She chuckled, and he stiffened, trying vainly to tear himself away from her when her hands closed over his spike. "Afraid not, you wretch. I'm going to frag you so hard you're going to wish you had DIED a virgin!"_

_***scene truncated***  
><em>

_ This was NOT how it happened! This had to be some sick dream of his deepest fears coming to fruition, and he would NOT take it lying down—_

_ LYING DOWN._

_ He was in recharge! Even as he felt Nightstalker begin the rape earnestly, his focus to escape this nightmare was shattered at the betraying PLEASURE that swamped over him. A deep, grating moan fell from his lips as he felt himself tremble at the sheer pleasure she evoked. Optimus bared his teeth, growling dangerously again as he tried desperately to block out the rising, primal lust that began to build within him. He would not become slave to such primitive feelings!_

_ Struggling to move, to sit up from his prone position, Optimus ignored whatever taunts Nightstalker was throwing cheerfully up to him. As he drove against this unseen force that held him down, he realized that it WASN'T as solid as he was thinking—the weight just pressed down so heavily he couldn't begin to move it. His spark was hammering in his chest with arousal as coolant rushed through his systems, but Optimus forced himself to focus. Straining against the impenetrable weight of this dream, Optimus felt it bending, weakening against his will—_

**_*scene truncated*_**

_He jerked his head back, arching painfully with pleasure, hands clenching so tightly on his berth he felt it splintering beneath his strength—_

_ His berth!_

_ Again he had something anchoring him to reality, but Nightstalker was trying her hardest to distract him. ***scene truncated*** Optimus gave a primitive growl, teeth baring in sweet, dangerous ecstasy that made him instinctively try to buck his hips into her—but that invisible force held him back, causing his optics to blaze neon white with the urgency for overload._

_ No! Optimus tried to shake his head, Immobilized still, sheer determination taking over. This was NOT how it happened! Another rocking wave of pleasure shot up through him, and the want, the lust nearly crippled him, but he shook his head, gritting his dentures. By Primus, he would not allow it to happen!_

_ A tiny moan brought his optics to rest on Nightstalker who continued to rape him, but her optics were closed now, complete and devastating bliss etched across her features, but a shadow of longing still marred her features by a pinch of her brow._

_ She whimpered. "Megatron . . ."_

_ MEGATRON? Uncaring at this point and desperate to get out, Optimus roared with determination, pushing, straining, and clawing his way out of the Immobilization that petrified him. This was NOT how it happened! This did NOT happen! This did NOT happen! THIS WAS NOT HOW IT PLAYED OUT!_

* * *

><p>Optimus jerked to a sitting position, awake and gasping in horror at the disgusting nightmare. Hot and shaky, Optimus got out of his berth almost frantically, collapsing on hands and knees as he gasped in cycles of air to help clear his system. Trembling on the ground, he squeezed his optics shut in revolution of the dream.<p>

It was disgusting. Worse still, he wasn't sure if it would have worked out the way it had, or if Nightstalker would have done much worse. The betraying feeling of arousal still gripped him even while he was awake, and Optimus growled dangerously, slamming his fists into the floor.

No! That primitive feeling was not acceptable of a disciple of Primus! His fists tightened and his jaw clenched as he struggled to calm down. It was just a nightmare. Just a mere dream, a figment of his imagination conjured up in a moment of weakness—

But why, oh _why_ had it felt so real?

Optimus shivered again, but he began to take careful and deep breaths to control his fear and lust, the twisted dream haunting him as what could have been. He felt his spike pulsing beneath his interfacing panel with the desperate need to overload, and he held perfectly still, controlling that urge to finish himself with every ounce of restraint he possessed.

But by PRIMUS it had felt so good . . .

Optimus thrashed his head clear of his lusty thoughts, trying to forget—Optimus growled again, slamming his fists to the ground when his thoughts betrayed him, bringing him back to a selfish and bodily wish that he had simply LET her ride him to overload . . .

No. He shook his head again, taking meticulous deep breaths to clear his hazy processor of these thoughts. It was WRONG. So wrong, sickeningly so. Still, the doubts whispered in his mind as the heat slowly began to leave him.

Optimus gritted his teeth, squeezing his optics shut tightly. Dear Primus, HOW could it have felt good? It was rape! It was violation in its lowest form, and he, a Prime, had taken pleasure in that? Optimus shuddered in shame, struggling a losing war with himself.

A speck of his old self, Orion, struggled to rise with the simple thoughts of the weak. Lust was normal, and he shouldn't fear it—but the Prime side argued with that side he hadn't relived for millennia, cursing its weakness. Lust was a corrupt feeling, and he had been wiped free of all corrupt feelings when he had been turned into a Prime . . .

Right?

As the dull grips of lust began to ebb away, Orion taunted him with the fact that he was still only a mech, and he was subject to ALL the makings that came with being one—including the base desire for a good frag. His Prime side reacted violently—be it so that he was still mortal, he didn't have to resort to something so degrading! He was better than that, and his will wouldn't allow him to give in to such corrupt desires.

Corrupt? Orion laughed in his mind, somehow seeming to reason with him even as he beckoned him into oblivion. Lust was normal—everyone experienced it. If lust was so corrupt, did that mean every other mech and femme out there was corrupt?

A pained whine caught in the back of Optimus's throat as he struggled with himself. Perhaps they were all corrupt. The Matrix had refused them all, but stopped with him, Orion, the one it had deemed worthy—uncorrupt. Pure.

Orion laughed back at the Prime inside. No. That was just his insufferable pride speaking. How low for a Prime to fall for his arrogance to be all that can protect himself from the disgusting truth! The Matrix had chosen ORION PAX to become a Prime, and Orion Pax was a mere mech as low as the rest of them, and just as easily corrupted with overpowering lust. Just because the Matrix had chosen him for great things did not mean he was not just as earthly as the rest of the mechs and femmes. You, too, are corrupt!

The Matrix is merely a vessel, and when bestowed upon someone, all its knowledge and power came with it. _Anyone_ can be shaped into a Prime. Orion's bitter hiss was drowned out as the Prime inside struggled to raise his head.

What was needed was a mech that was willing for self-sacrifice. The Matrix had to choose someone who was willing to endure being stripped of every ounce of personal freedom that shaped a leader. He was that mech—the Matrix had chosen him for that reason alone!

Orion Pax is your humanity, _Prime._ Without him, you would have become an unfeeling robot millennia ago. Transformed into a leader and swept of all thoughts of his former self.

Optimus gritted his dentures, feeling a part of himself falling apart as he struggled his inner fight. Had he truly lost himself? Lost who he was . . . in the duty of leadership?

Orion continued to mock him. When was the last time you truly laughed, _Prime?_ What do your friends really know of your personality, _Prime?_ You're something beyond them, not even worth the trivialities of everyday friendship. Go talk to Bumblebee! Just a friendly chat! See the confusion on his face when he realizes you're just trying to make small talk, _Prime!_ Are you really just a glorified object in their eyes, a legendary hero, when really you wallow in self-pity in a wretched state that wasn't even sure of his own identity, _Prime!_

And what of that vile question, _Prime?_ "Is something wrong?" Oh, a simple question, innocent on all levels by Bumblebee, curious by Cliffjumper and Bulkhead, deathly accurate by Arcee and Ratchet. And what is that lie you always spew out? Come on, tell me, you wretch! What do you always answer?

"It's nothing."

_**IT'S EVERYTHING!**_

The words cut as easily as Nightstalker's claws had cut through his body. Trembling, Optimus bent over himself in the floor, hands clutching his helm as he inwardly howled for help.

_It's breaking me . . ._

The Prime lashed back at Orion with anger. Orion Pax had DIED when the Matrix bestowed its great power to him! In his place, a stronger, smarter, more _worthy_ mech had been replaced, the great Optimus _PRIME!_ Orion was no more! A shadowy figment of the past! His weak miasma could control him no longer. His selfish desires had died to make room for the perfect leader of today—

_If you are so perfect, why have your perfect ways not ended this war millennia ago?_ A dark laugh mocked him, and Optimus felt his spark shiver—that voice was his own. _Your "perfect" ways must not work, oh WORTHY Prime!_

A scornful laugh interrupted his raging Prime. Oh, but Orion could certainly haunt him, couldn't he? A constant and painful reminder of the innocence he had left behind for something greater. The Prime couldn't be like the others—he couldn't afford deep attachments to others for fear it would impend with his leadership. He couldn't spark bond with any femme, no matter how deep he loved her because his leadership would stand in the way. He could never have a sparkling to call his own to carry on his heritage—he would live alone, and he would _die alone!_

_ I'm falling apart . . ._

This time, wiped of his fury and left empty and naked, the Prime could only answer that it was his duty. He owed it to everyone as the disciple chosen by Primus. He had a role to fulfill—someone had to be there to protect the weak. Someone had to be there to lead against the tyranny of the Decepticons. Someone had to bear this burden, and it was not one he would want to shove onto any other. For, if he did, they would suffer as much as he did.

Orion retreated, but not without a last parting word.

_You would give up so much for others when they take you for granted . . . and in the process, lose your own soul?_

Optimus shuddered, unaware that he had been leaking optic lubricant until he finally managed to prop himself up on his hands again. The little puddles mocked his weakness, and Optimus shook his head, trying to clear it of the dark haze that had clouded him.

It was just repercussions of the torture he had endured, and his fear taking reign without a leash. This would pass—and he couldn't let the others see him this low. His spark writhed as he remembered the sight of their horrified faces when he had been unable to muffle his sounds of pain when freed from the Immobilizer's grip. Those worried, unsure faces plagued him—when he was shaken, they were all shaken. They relied on him, and he pushed Orion further away, vowing to himself that he couldn't break again. He had to be strong for them.

But, he couldn't shake the thought that both Orion and Prime were a part of him . . . and he, Optimus would have to choose.

Shaking his head of these grim thoughts, Optimus retreated away from his desolate musings only to slam into the hateful wall of his recent predicament. Nightstalker—she had tortured him, had scarred him with things he would never forget—

Another pained whine filled his recharge room. _Could he never escape this misery?_

He groaned to himself, but took only minor comfort in the fact that Nightstalker had stopped short of what his nightmare had so vividly illustrated to him. That wasn't how it happened. None of that had truly happened, it was all in his mind. Nightstalker realized her error, and she had—

Optimus felt himself tremble, but this time, it wasn't out of fear or lust. The sight of the slow revelation in her optics had been so _painful . . ._ He squeezed his optics shut, unconsciously empathizing with her pain, the shadows over her spark. Sitting up, Optimus pressed a hand to his helm.

By Primus, the way she had WEPT over his ped! It humbled him to the point of guilt that she could be brought to that point. His emotions raged angrily in his chest. He still found himself scared of her—how could he manage to even look at her straight anymore, much less after this wretched dream! Could he ever truly forgive her for what she had done? Surely his compassion extended that far!

Standing shakily, Optimus looked down on his berth. His fingers had left deep groove marks on the bed, evidence of the sick dream he had before. Sinking heavily on the edge of his berth, Optimus rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his face into his hands.

He had to forgive her. No matter how much it hurt himself. It was his duty as a Prime to reach out to the fallen, the hurt, the weak, the haunted . . . and Nightstalker was a prime example of where his compassion should extend to. Orion cried out in agony again, but Optimus once again put others above himself.

He was not worth it. Her tears and horrified, guilt-ridden optics plagued him until he freely moaned for her pain. He had to do this for Nightstalker. She needed it more than Optimus needed relief for his own selfish weakness.

He had to be stronger than himself . . .

Optimus took a shuddering breath. And what of her brother, Fli-Ni? He had wrestled with the guilt of leaving him for years after he had left Kaon, and it had actually been Ratchet to finally wrestle him free of his own blame. He felt himself sinking into doubt again, and Optimus pressed his lips together. No. He couldn't fall back into the ceaseless ring of hating himself, trying to find reasons why he wasn't guilty, relief, and then burning guilt again. Nightstalker herself had realized it—it was the Decepticon who placed the bomb, and it was the Decepticon who had killed her brother.

Optimus's spark tightened in remembrance of the Decepticon. Once Nightstalker realized, she would want revenge on that Decepticon. Optimus knew who he was, but . . . he couldn't tell her. He wouldn't. She couldn't become obsessed over the past—

Decepticon. Optimus's mind slowed, and though a part of him cringed at the thought of even THINKING back on that dream, he did, the very end.

Megatron? Why would she have been calling _Megatron's_ name when she had known she was on Optimus? The great Prime struggled, wondering at the flaw in the dream, but soon chose he couldn't trust it. Everything after the point where she spoke of him letting the Decepticon kill her brother was false. It was just his mind playing cruel tricks on him, and he couldn't give in again.

_Keep pretending, Optimus Prime. You will surely devour yourself one day . . ._


	24. Reflections

**Author's Note:**

**Since so many people were asking about Nightstalker's relationship with Knockout, I've included a flashback. :D Yay!**

**Trivia: Also, the pun that she should be a Ferrari comes from the fact that she was originally a Ferrari until I made her a jet for the storyline. ;)**

**Hopefully her confinement days won't be TOO boring . . . I'm gonna kinda speed it up through them since she gets mundane work . . . Should be interesting to see how I'm supposed to keep you hooked while she's doing nothing . . .**

**And I'm REALLY liking what I'm doing with Optimus :D This will explain WHY he subconsciously took it so easy on her punishment :)**

* * *

><p>Bumblebee paced the main hangar of the silo restlessly. Bulkhead had been generous to take Raf to school with Miko for him, and now, while the kids were at school, Bulkhead was scouting for energon, as was Cliffjumper and Optimus. Arcee was too, but Bumblebee suspected it was more blowing off steam.<p>

Instead, as he paced restlessly, the day slowly stretching from morning to noon, he sent a worried look up to Ratchet. *What if she's in stasis lock?* he whispered nervously. *What if she—*

"You heard Optimus's order."

Bumblebee made an impatient click, and a vibrating whir of frustration left his vocals. *I know, Ratchet, you don't have to tell me. But she was injured—by Airachnid's venom! She was leaking . . .*

Ratchet didn't even look away from the computer. "Hardly enough to send her into a stasis," he grumbled.

Bumblebee stiffened at his disappointed voice. *I bet you probably wish she WAS in stasis lock!* he shouted at the medic, clenching his hands. *I bet you're just HOPEING that she'll just waste away and die back there—!*

Bumblebee caught his words tight when he heard a slight sound come from Ratchet's computer. He looked, seeing the dispatch from Nightstalker on the open line—prohibited from speaking in the private lines, it was the only way she could talk to them from a different location—and he waited with baited breath for her words. However, they heard only an unsteady breath before the communication shut off.

Bumblebee blinked. *She contacted us!* he burst, poised to take flight. *That counts!*

"No, no, no, it doesn't," Ratchet growled, grabbing his arm before he could rush off. "She either has to show up in this room or explicitly state that she wants you to come back. You heard Optimus!"

*But she CONTACTED me!* Bumblebee fought. He threw an arm towards the way to the back. *That has to count, it has to!*

"It doesn't!" Ratchet said severely, blue optics glinting. "If you go, I'll be obligated to report your insubordination to Optimus. Are you really going to cross him?"

*Maybe I should!* Bumblebee shouted, annoying lubricants pricking his optics again. *Maybe I should! Since, clearly, she has NO ONE! No one! And you guys are all willing to sit here and let her rot in the back like obstinate—!*

"And YOU'RE the only one willing to take her side," Ratchet snarled back just as mad. "She deserved this and MORE for what she did to Optimus!"

*No she doesn't!* Bumblebee cried out. *She stopped! She knew it was wrong, and she stopped, Ratchet!*

The medic scoffed. "That HARDLY makes up for what she did to Optimus in the long run."

*But she didn't do it!* Bumblebee persisted, growing more infuriated by the minute that they were all so sparkless. *She was crying! Ratchet, she's sorry, can't you see that?*

"I've yet to hear it," he said coldly.

Bumblebee flinched back, eyes dilating open in shock. Ratchet had the good grace to look at least a little bit carangid at his tone to the scout, but Bumblebee's optics dilated tight with anger. *Well, then why don't you give her the chance to say it?* he growled, artificial vocals rumbling in a lower pitch. He glared at Ratchet a moment more, and then, a dispatch showed up on the computer screen.

Bumblebee stopped his angry tirade, blinking wide at the feedback from Nightstalker. Finally, a hoarse and tentative, " . . . B-Bee?"

Bumblebee jumped up to the computer screen so quick he nearly knocked a fuming Ratchet over. *Nights!* he burst, standing on his toes. *Can I come back?*

He heard her take an audible breath before whispering, "Bee . . . B-Bee, I . . ."

*Nights, can I come back and see you? Please!*

She paused. After a moment, she finally asked, "What . . . Why couldn't you?"

Bumblebee felt his articulators hitch in his neck. It was Optimus's order. *I can't come back until you let me* he explained. *Can I come back now?*

Nightstalker was silent for a moment or two more, and then, she finally whispered, "Yes, come here . . . _please_ . . ."

*I'm coming!* he exploded, wheeling around and darting away so fast he nearly collided with Ratchet again. *Hang on, Nights, I'm coming!* he shouted. When he turned the corner to run down the hall, he skidded and banged into the wall before he was able to shift his weight and go hurtling forward again. *I'm coming, Nights!*

Bumblebee hurtled down the halls at breakneck speeds, managing to slide into one more wall before he made it to Nightstalker's door. Granted, he was moving so fast he nearly zipped past her door too, but he backtracked with a quick leap and came inside. He froze.

She was sitting on the floor, curled up in a ball in the corner. Her berth was in tatters, clawed and almost incapable of being slept upon. A painful hitch splayed in Bumblebee's systems at the sight of her festering metal.

*Nights . . .*

Bumblebee swooped down next to her and cuddled her close, carefully shifting her when he felt her stiffen in pain. *Are you all right?* he whispered, kneading that spot between her wings.

The stress was helpfully soothed from her taunt gears at the motion, and he felt her tremble before sighing. "Bee . . . I'm . . . okay . . ." She said it slowly, as if she wasn't sure she was, and he heard her take another steadying breath as she cuddled into him. "I've had a lot of time to think . . . And he's right."

Bumblebee stopped, looking down at her in shock. "W-What? You mean, Optimus?"

She nodded, and then she blinked up at him with orange optics. "Yes, I . . . I do deserve it. I—"

*Nights—*

"Let me finish," she said gently, a lip tipping up a little before falling straight. "I . . . Optimus is our leader, and for trying to kill him, that was of highest treason. I was lucky to get away with what I did and not termination. That's how things in war go, Bumblebee, and I'm not an exception. I'm not special like that, no one is. If Bulkhead did what I did, he would have to bear some kind of punishment too."

Bumblebee gave a sighing whir, squeezing her tight again. *I don't like it*

"Neither do I, but I've had a long time to come to grips with it." Bumblebee gently rubbed that special spot between her wings in the small room, and she lifted dim, but resolved orange optics to him. "I know I deserve it, and I'm willing to try and make it up to everyone. But . . ." She took a breath. "I'm scared, Bumblebee. I'm scared of how they're going to treat me, and I'm scared of not flying for the next six weeks. You've got to promise me that you'll help me through it all. Don't let me out of the base, no matter what, no matter what I say to you—and don't ever let me give up, no matter what I think or feel. Okay, Bee? Promise me."

Despite how much he didn't like it and how uncomfortable it made him, Bumblebee nodded—anything for her at this point. *Sure thing. I promise*

She relaxed a little then. "Thanks, Bee." Nightstalker started to get up then, but since she was still a little weak from her festered wounds and loss of energon, Bumblebee quickly helped her up, cooing supportive things.

Nightstalker sighed heavily as he helped her down the hallway to see Ratchet. "The kids are going to be so disappointed in me . . . and angry."

*It'll be okay* Bumblebee said immediately, squeezing her hand.

She fluttered her wings a little. "Bee? Ratchet's going to be rough when he fixes me up. Don't say anything. It's part of the punishment."

*No it's not* he said back, tensing immediately at what she was suggesting. *That's just him being spiteful*

"And that was Optimus's word," Nightstalker replied, shaking her head. "I have to earn by everyone's trust and respect, so they're free to treat me like a dirty Decepticon until I prove myself to them. Okay? So promise me you won't do or say anything."

Bumblebee stopped before they turned into the main hangar of the silo. *You ask me the hardest things . . .* he said softly.

She squeezed his hand in return. "Only because they're necessary," she whispered back. "Now. Promise?"

He gave a heavy sigh. *I promise . . .*

Nightstalker kissed his cheek. "Thanks." He watched her take a steadying breath and swallow before they went into the hangar.

Ratchet scowled at the sight of her, and pointed to the medical berth. "Sit."

Bumblebee let go of her finally, watching as she sat down meekly on the medical berth as he treated her injuries. It was just like she had said. It burned Bumblebee to watch her in pain and do nothing, but he honored his promise to her even when he knew Ratchet was purposefully doing things to hurt her just a little more out of spite.

When he was finished, Ratchet didn't spare her a second glance. "Get an energon cube and get back here. I've got work for you."

Bumblebee expected her to bolt because she looked so tiny and afraid, but she swallowed and fluttered her wings quickly. "I—" She caught her breath before continuing. "I'm still willing to use my own lava as a source of energon for myself," she whispered to the medical officer that had his hard back turned to her. "To help stretch the low energon reserves . . ."

She kept her head bowed as she waited for Ratchet's verdict, and she nearly jumped out of her protoform when Ratchet slammed an empty tub next to her. "Fill it up," he ordered brusquely, and he onlined her lava.

Nightstalker did so, both hands in the tub as the lava began to flow out, and she looked uncertainly to Bumblebee. He gave her a small smile and thumbs up to bolster her courage, and she let her eyes soften to him. She stiffened like she had been shot when Optimus's voice filled the silo.

"Ratchet. No sign of an energon deposit. Bridge me back."

Nightstalker immediately began to flutter her wings with anxiety. Since Ratchet moved away from the medical area, Bumblebee moved closer and kneaded the base of her wings again to soothe her. The ground bridge blasted open, and Optimus drove through, transforming up.

He looked their way with shielded optics, a shadow over them, but Nightstalker looked up with guileless ones. "I—" Her voice hitched a moment, and she was forced to clear it and try again. "I'm—I'm sorry. For all it's worth . . ."

Finally, Optimus faced her fully, and he nodded once. "It is worth much more than you may think it is," he told her. After a moment of hesitation, a silent war waging in his optics, he knelt in front of her. A solemn gaze focused in on her face. "I would like to offer my most sincere condolences over your brother," he said quietly.

Nightstalker could just nod. "T-Thanks," she whispered, opening and closing her wings. "I—don't hold it against you. I—" Her words tangled suddenly, and looking at him—with Ratchet's repairs, looking as if nothing had happened—and the full weight of her actions suddenly crashed down in her mind.

The optic lubricant welled up so quickly Nightstalker couldn't stop it. She had shed all of these last night—no more crying! No more—!

She felt herself begin to sob. Overcome with guilt, Nightstalker pushed from Bumblebee's arms and threw herself at Optimus's feet again, crying out, "I'm sorry! All of it—I shouldn't be allowed here! I'm so sorry—!"

Taken aback, the Prime quickly grabbed her shoulders, unwilling to see her prostrating herself before him. "Nightstalker, _please,_" he said, lifting her to her knees, "contain yourself." Even though his spark trembled in fear of the alternate side of her he couldn't understand, Optimus found himself saying, "What is in the past is in the past, Nightstalker. I for—"

"Don't you say it!" she exploded suddenly, jerking from his grip. Her orange optics glared at him, dancing with passion and tears. "I don't deserve it, and you don't mean it!"

Crossing her arms to try to contain her shaking, Nightstalker swallowed hard, struggling to stop crying. The silence stretched as she quivered, and preoccupied with herself, she missed the conflicted look that raged inside Optimus's optics. His servos twitched uncertainly. Nightstalker winced away from Optimus when she felt his hand take her shoulder, but he didn't let go.

"But I _will_ mean it," Optimus told her gravely. Nightstalker kept her optics fixated on the floor, unbelieving. But . . . hadn't she believed that Cliffjumper would never forgive her, and he had? "I may not today . . . but I know for a fact that in the future, this will not ever stand between us." When Nightstalker failed to respond, wrestling on the inside with her guilt, Optimus's hand squeezed her shoulder lightly. "Nightstalker, promise me one thing."

Despite how her lips trembled, she whispered, "What?"

"Don't ever degrade yourself so far that you don't believe you deserve forgiveness."

Startled at his words, Nightstalker looked up, finally able to blink away the leaks in her optics. "W-What?"

The Prime's optics seemed to sigh as he murmured, "No one is undeserving of forgiveness, you least of all." He took a rather hard breath, and Nightstalker witnessed him looking away from her as he spoke, literally . . . unable to look her in the eyes. His hand clenched tighter on her shoulder. "You wept at my _feet_ . . ." Clearly her actions had rattled him more than he would let on, and he lifted ancient blue optics to her face. "I am so, _so_ sorry about your brother, Nightstalker. I—wish there was something more I could have done . . ."

Finally, Nightstalker unstuck her glossia from the top of her mouth. "Then don't you say that," she said. Clearly, her words surprised him. She wet her lips. "If I'm going to believe I'm worthy of forgiveness, then you're not going to feel guilty about Fli-Ni. Got it?"

The great Prime's sorrowing eyes finally lifted of some of the shadows that plagued his spark. "Then it's a deal, Nightstalker," he said easily, and she felt the pressure on her own chest ease. "Let this be the start of a new chapter between us," he said, optics gentling on her.

Nightstalker bobbed her head. "Of honesty," she agreed.

Bumblebee thought his pride over her would make his chest explode. As Optimus headed down the halls, he picked Nightstalker up and hugged her from behind, giving a wordless coo.

"I can do this," he heard her whisper to herself. "I _can_ do this . . ."

He felt her shift to fill the tub of her lava again, and when the tub was filled, Ratchet took it from her. "You can start by cleaning up the mess Arcee and Bulkhead left in the training rooms," he stated, "including repairing the wall." Bumblebee wasn't even about to ask how they had managed to break a wall. "Then you can follow all the energon lines and repair any of the tiniest leaks. Come back when you finish that and I'll have more."

Nightstalker nodded, jumping to her feet. "Yes, sir," she replied, and Bumblebee watched her head off to do his bidding.

For some reason, he had a feeling that it was going to be a very long six weeks.

* * *

><p><em>Easy?<em>

The Prime pressed his hands against the closed door of his berth room.

_NOT easy. Almost impossibly hard._

And, as much as he hated to admit it, Nightstalker was right. His forgiveness was premature. While the white lie had eased Nightstalker, it had nearly ripped Optimus to shreds as he used every ounce of self-sacrifice he had to assure her that he wouldn't hold it against her.

His fists clenched tightly. He felt a tiny tremble run its way down his frame. Dear Primus, was it going to be that hard every time he saw her? Would it always be a constant fight, _deep_ inside, like he was trying to tear his own spark out? He almost hadn't had the strength to do it . . .

Desperately, before he fell back into his slump that had kept him up half the night, Optimus brought back the look of pure misery on Nightstalker's face.

_Don't you say it! I don't deserve it, and you don't mean it!_

Her words cut like daggers. That she could possibly believe she was scum enough that she should be condemned forever—it was almost unfathomable to try and think! NO one was without the chance for redemption—a fact that Optimus had shown the many times he should have taken down Megatron. But the worst . . .

He didn't mean it. And THAT was the thought that haunted Optimus the most.

He shuddered to himself, taking a deep breath to control his churning emotions. But the way Nightstalker had finally smiled softly with hope—Optimus seized that moment with all his spark. He tried to ignore his body that twitched in remembrance of her torture, tried to ignore the echo of her cruel voice mocking him.

_Why sacrifice so much for her? You owe her nothing. You would have been better off terminating her—you wouldn't have to endure this, you wouldn't be worrying about your own personal sin of lust, and her evils would have been snuffed forever._

Optimus winced back when Orion's snake-like voice returned. His spark rate started to gallop before he took a deep breath, assuring himself that he would go away when he fully calmed down.

_Go away? _A dark laugh echoed. _I can't just "go away" dear Prime. I AM you. I'll always be with you._

Optimus flinched then, gritting his dentures.

"I want nothing to do with you," he growled to himself. "I did the right thing. Nightstalker needed reassurance, and I gave it to her. I—"

_"I, I, I, I" can't you care about anything else? Are you really helping her for HER sake or merely to justify yourself as a worthy Prime?_

Optimus jerked back like he had been attacked, and hand leapt to his writhing spark. Orion tutted his tongue.

_Look at this. So much self-doubt crashing down. And it all started with Nightstalker. If you had just put her out of her misery like a strong and capable commander when you saw what she did to Cliffjumper, none of this would have happened._

Taking a deep breath to control his embroiled emotions, the Prime shook his head. "No," he whispered softly again. What, indeed, would have happened if he put her out of her misery? Would the United States have been destroyed in an atomic meltdown because of the DYNGAS? He didn't know if he could have stopped the train without Nightstalker's help. Would all three of their precious humans have died to Skyquake as a zombie Decepticon if she hadn't been there to protect them?

Orion's voice turned venomous. _You still believe that wretched femme has a shred of goodness in her? Ha! How ironic! Isn't that what you had believed of Megatron? That there was still some piece of Megatronus in him? Oh, if only you could bring it to the surface! If only you could bring your gladiator friend back and end this war! Well, that's where you're wrong, Prime! Megatronus is DEAD and in his place, a new, stronger, more worthy Decepticon leader was born in his place!_

Optimus cringed back into himself, sinking heavily to his knees. The lethal accusation hurt so much because it was so TRUE. Just like Orion had been turned into a Prime, Megatronus had turned into Megatron. Before their transformation, they had been the closest of friends, and after . . . mortal enemies. How was he supposed to combat the cold truth?

Orion scoffed another laugh. _Did you honestly think you could hide that from me, dear Prime? You still want your long lost friend to come back and would be willing to do anything to make it so. But, you know what I realize, that even YOU haven't figured out?_

Optimus's hands clenched on the ground as the dark voice mocked him with slow laughter.

_You see Megatronus in Nightstalker._

The Prime's intake seized in his body, stilling everything at once.

Megatronus . . . in Nightstalker?

_Oh please, don't act so surprised. Her bipolar switch from a friendly façade to a cruel torturer is just like Megatronus—so amicable off the field, charismatic and handsome, and then, in the gladiator pits, a ruthless monster._

Against his will, Optimus felt his spark reaching out for his closest friend that had died so long ago to become Megatron. It was no secret he missed him after all these millennia, even Ratchet could see it. Was that why he was so lenient with Nightstalker?

_Do you not see it yet?_ Orion continued to taunt him. _THAT is why you lust so much after Nightstalker. She carries the same demeanor as your best friend Megatronus, and you find that . . ._

_ IRRESITABLE._

A harsh cry caught in Optimus's vocals. No! Primus no, that couldn't be—!

_And why not? It's clear you care for this femme more than just lust. You care for her as deeply as you did Megatronus—_

Before Orion could twist the truth that like, the Prime growled, "No! You're wrong." His jaw gritted tightly, and he shook his head, bowed over on hands and knees. "It is pure lust, and you know it! It is evil, and I will not allow you to lie to me that it is something better than that. _I_ know what the truth is there, and you will NOT convince me otherwise."

Orion paused before digging deeper.

_But you wish it could be more, don't you?_

Optimus hissed, balling his hands into fist. He quaked on the floor of his berth room, wrestling with his inner demons.

_Imagine: what if you weren't a Prime? You and Megatronus could still be the best of friends._

"No," he cut in quickly, shoulders tensing. "Not while he carried such dark wishes in his spark. I could have never supported it."

_But someone else would have been Prime. You wouldn't have had to bear the burden of leadership, you would not have to have been alone all your life. You could have had friends, cared for Nightstalker as more than just her superior. The lives lost in this heathenish war would still be alive—_

"No," he hissed again, shaking his head. "You're wrong. War was imminent. It would have happened anyway, and I would have been forced to choose sides. And I know in my spark that I would not have sided with the Decepticons."

_That's the Prime in you speaking. Tell the truth, Optimus. Would you really not want to keep Megatronus as your friend? Would you really not want to let go of leadership and finally enjoy your life, free to make friends and love? Do you really dislike the thought of having Nightstalker by your side? Her friendship yours, free to support her with every breath, free to make her yours and YOURS ALONE . . ._

Optimus shook his head vigorously again, trying to dispel Orion from his central processor. "Do not speak to me," he snarled to himself, quaking in anger. "Get out! Leave me alone!"

Surprisingly, Orion's deceitful voice faded away at the irate command, leaving Optimus alone to his own devices. Trembling minutely, Optimus took a deep breath, struggling to control his rampaging emotions.

Nightstalker . . . he was attracted to her because she was like his best friend—only, a tiny, sultry femme that had no idea how black complimented her curves. A pained whine caught in the back of his vocals as he sought to kill the memories of Megatronus and control the present so it couldn't get out of hand. Worst of all . . .

She was _irresistible_ . . .

* * *

><p>So, where were all the bots? Besides Ratchet, out trying to claim a Cybertronian data cylinder. And where was Nightstalker? In the back, using a human-sized mop to clean the floors.<p>

She sighed to herself. It was hard to keep herself as resigned to her punishment as it had been since when she first started that first week back. The manual labor was starting to get to her—how in the WORLD did Ratchet manage to think of so many things for her to do? She had a feeling the silo was nearly spotless and she was often used for her small fingers to do small jobs.

Nightstalker still didn't know exactly how well she was received by the rest of the bots. She had apologized to them all individually as well, but Arcee had spat it back in her face as she expected. Ratchet ignored her. Bulkhead and Cliffjumper had seemed uncomfortable, and for some reason, she expected them to forgive her first.

Apologizing to the humans had been an adventure. Raf hadn't held any qualms, too much like Bumblebee to stay mad, but Miko had made it perfectly clear that Nightstalker had better be sorry and get back to work. Jack had been . . . frank. It had actually surprised Nightstalker. He told her in no uncertain terms that while in time he may forgive her for attacking Optimus, it wasn't going to be immediately. Once he was sure of her loyalties again, they would be fine, but for now, he was going to be wary.

And so, she cleaned floors with a human-sized mop. She sighed to herself tiredly, shuffling across the floor as she worked in straight and parallel lines of five feet from one wall to the other. This way, she would get it done as quickly as possible, if quick could be put in the same sentence as cleaning the silo floors . . .

With a human sized mop.

Miko was absolutely giddy. She got to get out of cleaning floors. Well, Nightstalker was forgotten in the back until her mop was confiscated for a paint brush for Bulkhead.

WHAT had she missed out on while cleaning floors? Obviously, the Cybertronian data cylinder contained a formula for synthetic energon, and the information had been jettisoned out when Miko touched it—the cylinders considered her an alien life form, and "threatening." However, Bulkhead got in the way and was now spouting out that formula like the world ended in mere minutes.

The synthetic energon was exciting—toting the heavy metal sheets were not since they probably weighed more than Nightstalker did. As Bulkhead muttered something to himself about atomic coordinates and tertiary structures, he used her mop to paint down the formula on it. When he filled yet another sheet of metal, Nightstalker did as told by Ratchet—grabbing the heavy sheet, she grunted and pulled it aside.

Groaning, Nightstalker struggled to drag it across the floor. She wasn't as strong as the others, so it was horrible to try and move these things across the floor. After all, they WERE nearly up to her shoulders. Panting and pulling, she heard a depressed coo from Bumblebee—clearly, he wanted to help, but wasn't allowed too.

"I've got it, Bee," she gasped to him. They were big enough that probably even Arcee would get help, but this was her punishment, and she could take it—maybe. Placing it against the other pile, Nightstalker had just enough time to suck in a breath, see Arcee and Optimus and Ratchet congregating at the computer to talk about something, and dart out again because Bulkhead had finished the next sheet of metal.

That was her designation for the rest of the day. She pulled and restacked sheets of metal for Bulkhead to write on. She didn't even get a chance to rest, and it wasn't really her fault—the sheets were just so heavy for her that there was no way for her to get to the other side quick enough to rest in between sheets of metal.

It went on for HOURS. Nightstalker thought it would never end, this list of complicated formulas for the synthetic energon. Bulkhead constantly mumbled to himself and used up the paint—which she also had to refill—and the redundant process tired her. Eventually Bumblebee took Raf home and Arcee went home with Jack. Miko stuck around, too stubborn to leave Bulkhead.

Then, everything fell to heck in the late hours. The bots went out barter with Megatron because the formula was eating up Bulkhead's brain cells, and when Nightstalker had went to the back to refuel on energon, Miko and Bulkhead left the base. Nightstalker ran to Ratchet since she couldn't leave base, and Ratchet contacted the Prime all the while sending her scathing glances as if she were the reason Bulkhead and Miko were in trouble.

It turned out that the formula for synthetic energon was shot into space, Bulkhead's mind was cured, and Nightstalker didn't have to tote the heavy sheets of metal back and forth.

Instead, once he got them transcribed down, Ratchet forced her to clean them.

The obvious penchant he had for giving her busy work was really grinding on the second week of punishment. Nightstalker praised herself for managing not to go stir crazy—she had a feeling all the busy work helped in that retrospect—but there was a niggling urge in the back of her mind that was slowly closing in and refusing to be ignored. She chanted to herself only four more weeks, she was almost halfway through, but she found herself instinctively fluttering her wings, moving them, and trying to brush off the need to fly.

* * *

><p>Nightstalker scrubbed.<p>

And scrubbed.

And scrubbed . . .

And scrubbed . . .

Scoffing in irritation, she threw the rag down in disgust and crossed her arms. Ratchet had promised it would come off!

Bumblebee sat crisscross across from her. His big blue eyes blinked at her struggle, and finally, he said tentatively, *Ratchet says you have to scrub hard*

"I'm scrubbing as hard as I can!" Nightstalker burst in irritation, rinsing down the fifth metal sheet of the big stacks. Still, tiny specks of white paint refused to come off, and if she let Ratchet inspect her work like she had the first several, he would say it wasn't good enough, ALL the specks had to be off. Curse Bulkhead for using paint for his synthetic energon formula instead of washable markers!

"It works! Bee!"

Nightstalker and Bumblebee both looked up to Raf and Ratchet who had been experimenting with the new synthetic energon Ratchet had whipped up. It worked? Nightstalker felt excitement start to beat in her chest until Ratchet doused it, saying that no one gets to try it until he performed more tests on it.

So, Nightstalker went back to scrubbing. After detecting more energon on the move, Optimus took everyone but her and Ratchet to confront the Decepticons. Jack was at work, Miko was in detention—so that left Nightstalker trying to clean and Ratchet with his synthetic energon, and Raf . . . with whatever he did. He was probably studying right now since he was so quiet.

Glass shattered, Nightstalker looked up to see Ratchet stagger back woozily, and her optics widened. She leapt to her feet just as he passed out, crashing to the ground in a heap.

"Ratchet!"

Nightstalker leapt up, leaving her work to move quickly towards the fallen medic. Unsure what happened, she immediately tried to perform a scan on him only to remember that she couldn't—weapons, comlink, EVERYTHING was offlined for her punishment. Raf came running up with scared eyes, asking, "What happened?"

She shook her head, kneeling at Ratchet's side. "I—I don't know. He just . . . passed out, I don't know." She jumped back up, picking up all the broken glass so Raf wouldn't cut himself. "Ratchet! Ratchet! _Ratchet!"_

Nightstalker glanced back when she heard him groan heavily. "Wake up!"

Ratchet groaned again. "How is it that such small beings can be so loud?"

Nightstalker let out a breath when she heard his snarky remark, and suddenly she knew it wasn't as horrible as she was thinking it was. She began to help him to his feet, but once he realized it was her, he brushed her off.

"I'm fine," Ratchet told a worrying Raf. "I'm—" He paused suddenly, seeming surprised. He rotated one of his arms, making a strange face. "More than fine." Checking his own levels, he gaped in shock. "Energy efficiency is up thirty percent? Motor functions optimal?" He laughed for once, a warm laugh, but it stopped short as he shook his head. He looked down at Raf, pointedly ignoring Nightstalker. Sighing, she knew a dismissal when she saw one. Retreating back to her corner to wash again, she heard him ask, "Any word from the others?"

Dunking her rag back in the bubbly water, Nightstalker bent over the latest metal sheet and resigned herself again to her designation around the silo. Soft footsteps approached, and Nightstalker looked up to see Raf coming closer.

"Are you sure I can't help?" he asked, and Nightstalker held out a hand.

"Stop right there, Raf, and don't come closer." At his puzzled look, Nightstalker let her lips quirk up. "The chemicals are too strong for you humans," she told him. Then, narrowing her eyes at Ratchet's back, muttered, "But obviously not too strong for paint . . ."

"Ratchet! Lock on to Arcee's coordinates and prepare an emergency ground bridge!"

Nightstalker jolted at Optimus's terse voice, and Ratchet's hands were already flying over the console. "I'm locked on," he replied. "Arcee, decelerate and prepare to return to base!"

"Save it, Ratchet." Nightstalker felt her eyes pop at Arcee's disobedience. Did she ever listen to orders? "I'm too close!"

"Don't be a fool!" Ratchet snapped, but this time, there was no response.

Nightstalker felt her wings flutter. Whatever had obstructed the way between her and the rest of the Autobots, she could simply fly over it and provide her with back up since she refused to return. And it would give her a reason to get flying again . . .

Nightstalker jumped to her feet, staggering with the sheer amount of desperation that suddenly swelled up inside for flight. No—She had to stay in base. Just four more weeks, almost halfway there . . . She took a deep breath, struggling to contain the urge when she heard the ground bridge blast open.

She jerked away like it was hell's gates, optics popping wide when she saw Ratchet run through. Getting a grip back on her sanity, she looked to Raf with wide eyes. "What happened?"

"Didn't you hear?" Raf squeaked, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. "Arcee's been hurt! Ratchet just left to help her and left me with ground bridge controls!"

It hit her like a punch in the gut. "Arcee?" Nightstalker looked to where the ground bridge closed, and she swallowed. Cliffjumper would be worried mad.

She chafed her arms, frowning at the sight of the dark tunnel for the ground bridge. "I hate waiting . . ." she muttered.

Raf nodded from across the base. "Me too. I always feel like something bad's going to happen."

Casting a glance to her charge, Nightstalker sighed and began to scrub the metal sheets again. "Well, at least work can keep my mind off things . . ." Particularly the want to fly again.

The minutes ticked by slowly, but there wasn't anything urgent said through the consol. Instead, later, Optimus asked for a ground bridge that Raf opened immediately. Nightstalker let out a breath when she saw everyone walk through unscathed, albeit, Arcee a little more banged up than the others—Ratchet must have done a few repairs out in the field this time.

Stunned, Raf asked, "What happened?"

"I only saw the gory aftermath," Bulkhead laughed, "but I heard the Doc was a one bot wrecking machine!"

Nightstalker felt her optics pop—and she meant POP—when Ratchet gave an exhuberant laugh, picking Raf up in greeting with a grin. "Hey there, little fella!"

As Ratchet sat Raf down and waltzed away, Arcee hiked up a mildly amused brow. "All right. What's your secret?"

"No secret," Ratchet said with much more swag than Nightstalker knew he possessed. "Just a little something I like to call _Synthen."_

Nightstalker stared dumbly as he tossed a cylinder of the synthetic energon to Arcee, a comfortable smirk on his face. Since when did Ratchet SMIRK!?

"From the data Bulkhead transcribed?" she asked. "I thought the formula was—"

"Incomplete?" Ratchet interrupted. He gave a laugh—ANOTHER LAUGH—and scoffed, "Not anymore."

Nightstalker felt her lips twitch when all Bumblebee could think to say was, *It looks weird*

Cliffjumper barked with laughter, pounding Bumblebee's shoulder. "Of course it looks weird! It's synthetic!"

Bulkhead was still guffawing in delight. "So Ratchet makes a better tough guy than I do a smart guy?" Clearly, he was getting a lot of kicks and giggles out of that thought.

As they passed the cylinder of green liquid around, Optimus's hands came to rest on it, frowning slightly as he did. "Ratchet," he began to say, "I question the wisdom of using yourself as a test subject."

"Optimus," Arcee said, still star struck at what she had seen. "You didn't SEE Ratchet out there. He was in overdrive! We should all try this stuff!"

"Or give Ratchet MORE so we can take a vacation!" Bulkhead echoed with a laugh, the high of excitement only slowly wearing off of the worked up bots.

Nightstalker began to scrub again, eyeing Optimus out of the corner of her optics. "I agree that the initial results seem promising," he said slowly, "but I recommend that further testing be confined to machines."

And he clearly didn't mean the _living_ kind.

"NOT Autobots."

Nightstalker felt her brows pinch in confusion at the _extremely _serious tone Optimus used. What was he so worried about? Was it Ratchet's sudden change in disposition? Nightstalker had to give the Doc bot a little slack—it had been his first time out in the field in . . . forever, and he had to have been running on an adrenaline high. But, Optimus was staring down in Ratchet's optics thick with worry, so Nightstalker could only assume that perhaps he was getting something more she had missed?

At the slightly crestfallen face of Ratchet who had been so sure of the Synthen, Optimus rested a hand on his shoulder and said gravely, "Outnumbered though we may be, old friend, we need a warrior in the laboratory right now more than we need another in the field."

That effortlessly killed the excitement for the synthetic energon. Sighing in resignation, Nightstalker began to scrub again—and then her heart did a little leap as she washed off the metal sheet for the last time.

It was clean! No specks, no nothing! Making a slightly relieved noise, Nightstalker hefted the clean sheet over to stack it with the rest. Then, she pulled down another dirty sheet and began the redundant scrubbing again.

Letting her mind drift, Nightstalker found her mind returning to the Decepticons of all bots. Really, the only ones she had talked to—besides Megatron—was Knockout and Breakdown. Airachnid she never saw because she deserted the 'Cons to fly solo, but Nightstalker's lips twisted up in remembrance of the two bots. Believe it or not, she had a couple good memories of the _NEMESIS_ and some of the 'Cons there.

* * *

><p><em>"Well, look who's dropped by for a visit! It's about time I seen those fine legs around here!"<em>

_ Nightstalker snorted at Knockout, waltzing into the med bay. "Hello, Knockout," she said to the vain Decepticon._

_ "What can I do for you today?" he asked with a smirk. He crossed his arms. "Are you willing to take my offer yet?"_

_ Rolling her orange optics, Nightstalker ignored his offer for sex again. "Knockout, ask all you like, but I am MEGATRON'S. You want my valve you go through him, and I sincerely doubt that you'd want to get that pretty little paint job of yours scratched up."_

_ Knockout just shrugged as if it were a pity. "Whenever you change your mind . . ."_

_ "Not going to happen." Jumping up and sitting crisscross on a medical berth, Nightstalker shrugged her shoulders at him. "I'm bored. Entertain me."_

_ Knockout laughed them. "Please, Nightstalker. If you want me to entertain you, you should let me show you some berth skills. That way you'd be entertained for hours."_

_ Nightstalker rolled her optics again in exasperation. "Get over it, Knockout."_

_ "I'm just saying femmes look sexy in black."_

_ Flopping on her back with overzealous exaggeration, Nightstalker whined, "C'mon, Knockout! I'm so bored! Don't you have something to do?" Before he could speak, she added, "That's not fragging each other's brains out?"_

_ "Well now you just took all the fun out of that," Knockout chuckled. "I hate to disappoint someone like yourself, but there's not much going on. Why don't you go out flying again?"_

_ She groaned again. "I've BEEN flying. I've been flying all the time for the last several months until Starscream got pissed that I was wasting energon. So I kept flying just to piss him off more, but then he eventually gave up fighting and it got boring again." Nightstalker rolled onto her stomach, looking up at Knockout. "I've practiced the pole dancing Megatron likes until I'm sure I've got pole burn somehow, and I'm BORED."_

_ Knockout shook his head sadly at Nightstalker. "Hey, the big man hasn't been back for over two years now. If we knock boots he isn't going to know a thing."_

_ "KNOCKOUT."_

_He raised his hands in surrender. "It makes sense to me, and don't you tell me you're not going stir crazy without him. You two were all over each other."_

_ Nightstalker turned over, wrinkling her nose at the ceiling. Okay, now Knockout was hitting the truth of the matter very closely. It was true she and Megatron had lots of fun and without that nighttime banging the world did get a lot more boring on the Decepticon ship. Still, Megatron took his leadership to the Decepticons very serious and had gone searching for more troops. It didn't help that on the especially lonely nights and the especially boring days that she almost DID decide to take up Knockout's offer._

_ "You know, I bet that pole dancing Megatron likes could use a good critique."_

_ Nightstalker huffed. "I'd tell you to suck it and that my pole dancing skills are perfectly fine, but you'd probably try to take the sucking thing literally."_

_ "How come every time I walk in here you two sound horny?"_

_ Nightstalker groaned in irritation, but Knockout laughed at Breakdown as the big mech walked into the room. "She's bored," Knockout told him._

_ Breakdown grunted. "They why doesn't she just let you frag her?"_

_ That made Knockout laugh harder and wink her way, but Nightstalker gave up, throwing her hands up with exasperation. "Look, I said I'm BORED! I didn't come in here for your perverted talk!"_

_ Breakdown chuckled, sitting down on the opposite medical berth. "Well, I don't know about that one. I walk in and you're talking about pole dancing and sucking? Sounds to me like you're just TRYING to get Knockout here to jump you."_

_ Snarling in frustration again, Nightstalker flopped face flat on the berth she sat on. "Knockout," she muttered, "please put your dog on a leash."_

_ "Hey!"_

_ "Get me the dog collar and I might," he retorted back, ignoring Breakdown's indignation._

_ Tapping her fingers on the berth, Nightstalker popped back to a sitting position. "C'mon, Knockout, let's go for a race."_

_ He crossed his arms, arching a brow at her. "Not until you get some proper wheels, chick. I keep telling you that you should get some tread—"_

_ "I'm not a triple changer—"_

_ "You could drop the wings. I'm thinking a Ferrari is perfect for you, just small enough, but definitely sexy enough for those curves—"_

_ "Knockout, I'm not getting rid of my wings."_

_ He clucked his tongue sadly. "That's a pity. You would have made a gorgeous Ferrari."_

_ When his red optics trailed over her again, Nightstalker narrowed her eyes. "Knockout, I so swear, if you don't stop looking at me like that I'm leaving right now."_

_ Knockout laughed then, sitting on the berth next to her. "It's your fault," he told her. "You're the one coming in here and talking about sex and pole dancing and sucking."_

_ She crossed her arms. "YOU'RE the one that brings up sex. All the time. I can't get a normal conversation out of you."_

_ He shrugged, most infuriating as he sent her a sly smile. "Well, you're lonely and missing Megatron, and I promise to never bug you about it again if you let me get in one good interface."_

_ "No."_

_ "Please?"_

_ "No."_

_ "How could you resist this face?"_

_ "Just like this," Nightstalker said, immune to his pouty eyes. "No."_

_ "How about a face like this?"_

_ She rolled her own optics when he put up a sultry look, trying not to giggle. "Nope, not that either. Face it, Knockout, I'm untouchable by you."_

_ Breakdown laughed at Knockout's disgruntled face. "What's wrong, Knockout? Is this a sign that I should up the ante even more tonight? You scream enough as it is."_

_ Knockout scowled, especially when Nightstalker had to try to stop laughing at him. "Shut up, Breakdown."_

_ "Not my fault you're a horny little fragger."_

_ Nightstalker laughed again, winking at Breakdown. "I do wonder, if I put on a show for you two, how quickly could I have you on each other?"_

_ Knockout seemed to take great delight in this idea as his optics brightened. "That doesn't sound too bad! Getting an eyeful of you on a pole would be good enough for me, and there's plenty of Breakdown and me to go around." He winked at her. "It might turn into a threesome."_

_ Nightstalker groaned, jumping to her feet. "All right, I'm outta here."_

_ "What? C'mon, Nightstalker, I was just kidding—"_

_ "No you weren't," she interrupted, glaring at his innocent face momentarily before turning her back on them. "Bang him up, Breakdown," she cajoled to him as she began to waltz to the door. "Make sure I can hear him screaming even if I'm in my recharge room."_

_ "What? You little glitch!"_

_ Laughing at how infuriated she had made Knockout, she heard Breakdown echo her laughter, clearly getting a kick out of her playing with him. "Suck it, Knockout," she snickered. She slapped her aft, saying, "This fine aft here is Megatron's only."_

_ Leaving the room and chuckling to herself, Nightstalker meandered aimlessly through the halls. Now what? She had toyed with Knockout and actually had some chum time with Breakdown instead of making fun of the poor mech. Fly? She sighed. Not really. Maybe later._

_ Wandering around, she eventually made it back to Megatron's room. Heading inside, she looked at the big, empty berth, Nightstalker sighed, crossing her arms. Jumping up on the berth, she cuddled in the center of it, slowly fanning her wings._

_ Against her will, she missed him. And not just to fill the free time. He had been gone for two years, four months, and twenty-seven days, running on roughly ten hours. Eh, but who was counting? Certainly not Nightstalker, no, of course not . . . And, in all actuality, it wasn't that long considering how long Cybertronians lived, but still . . . that was beside the point. He was her only close friend. Sure, she could goof off with Knockout and Breakdown, but it wasn't like when she was with Megatron._

_ Flying was still fun, but it wasn't as fun as when Megatron was around. It was fun to race him, to play dangerous games of tag in the air. Sighing and curling up on the berth, she found it was rather cold without him there—_

* * *

><p>A thunderous crash interrupted her musings, and Nightstalker jerked out of the memories, looking around—and then, she groaned.<p>

Whoever that was, Primus damn them to pit. She was going to be the one fixing that wall!


	25. Withheld Truth

Nightstalker looked up from her scrubbing as the computer flickered, beeping at them.

"Looks like the 'Cons hit another vein," Arcee said. Nightstalker sighed to herself, trying vainly to resign herself to her work, but it was so, SO old now. She wasn't even halfway through the pile yet either!

"Autobots, roll out—"

"Hey, hey," Bulkhead interrupted Optimus. "Shouldn't we wait for our secret weapon?"

It was no secret he was talking about Ratchet.

A conflicted look crossed Optimus's face. "This mission is unlikely to require medical expertise."

"But you never know if it may require additional _firepower_."

Nightstalker's head jerked up again at the sight of Ratchet and his newly acquired swagger as he waltzed into the room. He waved a nonchalant hand. "Bumblebee can handle ground bridge duty."

A confused Bumblebee just watched as Ratchet strode towards the ground bridge tunnel. *Um . . . I guess I can do ground bridge . . . let him take point . . .*

Optimus didn't seem too pleased, but Ratchet was all for it, saying, "Time to put some _hurt_ on those Decepticons!"

The ground bridge opened again, and Nightstalker pointedly ignored its happily twinkling lights that beckoned her to fly. She had four more weeks—she could wait.

Instead, as the bots left and left only herself and Bumblebee in the base, Nightstalker continued scrubbing off the synthetic energon formula. Bumblebee sat down across from her.

*Well, Ratchet seems . . . spirited*

Nightstalker felt her lips twist up. "I swear, that synthetic energon must be a drug. I've never seen him so . . . carefree?"

*Excited?*

Nightstalker nodded. "That too. And walks around like he's been listening to too much George Thorogood."

Bumblebee laughed freely then, and Nightstalker was unsurprised to hear the song she alluded to blare on in his speakers, the iconic guitar riff starting up.

Bumblebee laughed, snapping his fingers. *This is the one, isn't it?*

Grinning, Nightstalker looked up at the cute Autobot. "Oh yeah. _That's the one."_

Bumblebee tinkled another laugh, bobbing his head. *B-b-b-b-bad! Bad to the bone!*

They laughed more together in the quaint silo in solitude, and then, the song suddenly cut off as Bumblebee looked at her in surprise. *Wait a minute—how did YOU know what that song was?*

Nightstalker gave a dry laugh. "Well, Bumblebee, considering the immeasurable amount of free time I had on the _NEMESIS,_ I acquired a taste in the humans' music, sometimes much to Megatron's dismay . . ." She felt herself frown, orange optics darkening in remembrance. She scrubbed more viciously at the mere reminder. "After all, it's not like Autobots came in everyday for me to torture . . ."

Bumblebee gave a quiet whir. Scooting over on the floor, he rested a hand on Nightstalker's shoulder. Growling slightly, Nightstalker only redoubled her efforts on the offending sheet of metal, watching the paint chip off and wash away—

Primus, if only her past could do the same!

*Nights . . . what's wrong?*

She felt her hands, gripping the rag, slam down into the metal sheet. Flecks of soapy bubbles jumped up and latched to her like frothy mosquitoes. Trembling, she began to flutter her wings in mounting anxiety.

"What's wrong?" she hissed at him. She couldn't help her embittered tone to him—Primus knew he didn't deserve it, but it felt good to get it off her weighted-down spark. Primus knew she had tried to suppress it the past weeks, the past months with the Autobots, but it slowly came up, like a swelling tide that refused to be ignored. "Bumblebee, I can _see_ in my mind what I've done over my lifetime—the spilled energon, twisted limbs, and terrified faces. I can _hear_ what I've done—the shrieks, the curses, the pleas." Nightstalker felt sudden tears prick her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away, frowning with a sarcastic laugh. "How is it that I suddenly gain a conscience around bloody Autobots? If I'd've known that the guilt would hurt this much I wouldn't have ever turned!"

*You don't mean that* Bumblebee said quickly, scooting closer to wrap an arm around her shoulders. His intimate gesture restricted Nightstalker's determined scrubbing, and she halted, quivering. *It's going to be okay, I promise*

Against her better though, Nightstalker gave a barking scoff. "Like you can promise that. Bumblebee, I was a fragging _torturer!_ When someone begged for me to stop, I laughed and spat in their faces! When a prisoner was so disgusted at what I did he vomited, I took delight in it and mutilated them further!" She threw an arm out to the closed ground bridge. "Just ask Cliffjumper, I'm sure he'll have some sordid tales to tell you all!"

A worried whine caught in Bumblebee's vocals, and he scooped her up tightly in his arms. *Don't say that* he said quietly, kneading the joint between her wings. *Nightstalker, he forgave you. You're an Autobot now—it's all in the past. You can forget about all of that*

"No I can't," she hissed back, sitting stiffly in his lap. "The past _always_ matters, Bee! It defines me for who I am—a sick, sadistic murderer!"

Bumblebee shook her then, big blue optics swallowing her line of sight. *No. _Don't_ you say that. It's your _actions_ that define who you are. Just because you can't change the past doesn't mean that you have to keep wallowing in it. You can change the future, Nights. Don't ever forget it*

A weak laugh spilled from her lips. Nightstalker hung her head, shaking it slowly. Her wings drooped. "Then why can't the past stay in the past?"

He blinked. *Huh?*

Nightstalker felt a fierce scowl warp her face. "The past does a slagging good job of haunting me in my dreams. Those nameless, faceless, lifeless mechs that stalk my every waking moment . . ." Before she realized she had done it, she had shivered and ducked into Bumblebee's chest. "Bee . . . sometimes I wish Megatron _had_ let me die at Kaon."

Bumblebee was quiet for a moment, searching for the words he needed, but unfortunately came up with nothing. He sighed, rocking her. *Optimus would know just what to say in a situation like this . . .* he murmured. *Well, _I'm_ glad that ol' 'Con didn't let you die. Cause I want you here, Nights*

Her spark flipped in her chest, and unable to resist his child-like charm, she hugged him tightly, burying her face in his neck. "Thanks Bee," she whispered. "I hate to say it, but . . . sometimes you're all that keeps me going."

Bumblebee gave a little laugh. *Glad to be of help!* He chuckled again, rocking until Nightstalker squeaked because they were falling way off balance. Bumblebee landed on top of her, and Nightstalker laughed, pushing at the mech that had her pinned.

"Bee, get off!"

A laugh tinkled from his systems. *Only if you tell me your top three genres, top three artists or bands, and top three songs!* he cajoled back playfully.

Nightstalker giggled, squirming beneath his weight, all alone in the silo. "All right!" she hollered. "I like pretty much anything with a guitar, so rock, metal, and grunge!"

Bumblebee made a sound of surprise as he looked down on her. *Really? So I bet you like whatever Miko plays all the time*

Nightstalker shrugged, grunting when Bumblebee sat his butt down on her chest. "Y-Yeah. Okay, my favorite bands would be . . . ACDC, Linkin Park, and, um, Metallica."

Bumblebee laughed again. *What, no Beatles?*

Nightstalker felt the heat of a blush dye her cheeks. "Bee!" she howled, squirming more. "They're good too, I just shouted the first three that came to mind!"

Bumblebee was rolling so hard now that it almost echoed in the empty silo. *Okay, favorite three songs! Go!*

"Um, uh . . . November Rain, Dream On, and, um, Stairway to Heaven."

Bumblebee died of laughter, rolling off of her and nearly knocking the bucket of soapy water over. *_Nights! _Those are by Guns N' Roses, Aerosmith, and Led Zeppelin! Not even your "favorite" bands!* He laughed more, and Nightstalker kicked him lightly, snickering at him.

"I just blurted some stuff out to get you off of me!" She crossed her arms and poked out her tongue before resuming her cleaning duties. "It worked, didn't it?"

Bumblebee gave a playful growl, starting to give another snarky remark, but both bots jumped when Optimus's hard voice filled the silo.

"Bumblebee, bridge us back."

Bumblebee absolutely leapt to the consol hearing the edge in his leader's voice. Nightstalker tucked her head and began scrubbing again, wondering what could have possibly set him off.

Nightstalker looked up when Ratchet walked through the ground bridge. His sullen face didn't read of anything until he looked at her.

Her spark jumped at his green optics. Primus, she could tell from halfway across the base that they were green! How had she not seen this before? Was it a side effect of the synthetic energon? Is that why Optimus had been so worried?

"Ratchet?" she asked softly.

Instead of anything she had expected, the medical officer's face warped with a snarl, and he ran back out of the silo.

There was a lull, and then Bumblebee squeaked, *Ratchet?*

The other three bots came back in quickly, all transforming in unnerving unison. Arcee was at the consol before the rest of them, a grim look on her face.

"Can't get a fix on Ratchet's coordinates," she reported stiffly.

"That bogus energon must be scrambling his signal!" Bulkhead snarled while Nightstalker's mind was still stuck on the fact that they couldn't find Ratchet—wait, it _was_ the energon!

"Keep trying," Optimus ordered, brows pinched in worry. "We've got to find Ratchet _before_ he finds Megatron."

Nightstalker's spark rate kicked into overdrive as she broke her back over the metal sheet. _Ratchet_ went to confront Megatron? Primus, he was going to get himself killed! Nightstalker was never much of a bot for praying to Primus but she did so now. Megatron would kill him!

In fact, Nightstalker hadn't been far off the mark. Ratchet came in severely wounded, right chest plate crushed in and stained green with the leakage of synthetic energon. Optimus had carried in his old friend and set to work on his wound while the other bots toted in—

Energon.

They had successfully pilfered the Decepticon mine! Cliffjumper was all crows and hoots and hollers for the success, telling everything that he was refueling good tonight. Unlike the others whose excitement was dampened by what had happened to Ratchet, Cliffjumper steadfastly believed that Ratchet was going to be fine.

And, as it were, Ratchet did pull through, and for that, Nightstalker was grateful.

Bad part was, Ratchet had enough spunk in him to forbid the other bots from helping and Nightstalker was set to moving the huge stash of energon into the base all on her own.

* * *

><p>Well, considering all the energon, Cliffjumper was set on celebrating since they were out of the hole of starving to death. It didn't actually go to full out "party mode" but it certainly was exciting because he was head banging with Bulkhead to Miko's music.<p>

Nightstalker, yet still on the twentieth day of her punishment, scrubbed the energon formula.

The wall Ratchet threw Bulkhead into while hyped up on Synthetic energon had been more trouble than it was worth. It took her the course of several days to fix since she was tiny, and had worn her body thin. Now, while her body was exhausted, she once again went to wearing her mind and patience thin.

Still, while Miko struck up another ballad, Nightstalker tried to focus on the music as she redundantly scrubbed, but to no avail. Her mind kept slipping—after all, there was an opening to the outdoors right through the tunnel . . . She kept gauging the distance, cutting her eyes towards it. Surely she could get past the bots. Cliffjumper and Bulkhead were too busy to notice, and Bumblebee was playing video games with Raf. Ratchet was on his computers, so that left only Arcee and Optimus to worry about . . .

Nightstalker shook her head. No! She had to stay in the base. She was almost halfway there—she wasn't going to get cold feet now. She could take this. She ground her jaw ferociously, stubbornly refusing to give in. Fluttering her wings nervously, Nightstalker focused on the bubbles that frothed on the metal surface, paint slowly chipping away.

Surprisingly, Miko's guitar stopped. Cliffjumper groaned—and loudly.

"C'mon! You done already?"

Miko walked forward until she was at the top of the stairs. She crossed her arms and peered at Nightstalker. "Okay, so fess up," she told the seeker. "Tell us about Fli-Ni."

Nightstalker froze in the middle of her scrubbing, wings perking up straight. It felt like everything stilled in the room as every eye and optic turned on her. Licking her lips, she finally looked up to Miko's critical gaze.

"Wh . . . What?"

"You heard me," Miko persisted without any grace. "Why'd you attack Optimus like a dirty 'Con again? Why did you think HE killed your brother?" She snorted. "Weirdo."

Nightstalker let out a hard breath and averted her face from the probing gazes. "Yeah," she finally said a bit breathily. "I am a weirdo." Swallowing and taking a deep breath to get a hold of herself, Nightstalker shook her head. Leaning back to sit on her ankles, Nightstalker looked up at the impatiently waiting Miko.

Knowing the human wouldn't appreciate a full blown out story, Nightstalker kept the facts laid flat. "Fli-Ni was my brother," she said. "When he died, I was thinking irrationally and stupidly—and since I was aligned with Decepticons, I didn't for a second think that thinking Optimus killed my brother was far-fetched." She sighed, looking away.

"It was more than stupid though," she murmured. "It was downright moronic. My brother was killed by a Decepticon seeker. When Kaon was overrun, I was separated from Fli-Ni. When I finally found him, he was pinned beneath a beam, and his wings were mangled." A painful hitch suddenly caught in Nightstalker's systems at the memory, and she shook her head. Her wings began to fan. "He was pleading for help. Optimus turned, and he was going to help, but . . ."

Taking a steadying breath, Nightstalker forced away the emotions bubbling up and said, "A Decepticon seeker landed and planted a bomb to taunt Optimus. Optimus ran to protect himself—I can't fault him. He only would have died with my brother. Still . . . Fli-Ni was blown to bits, and that—that was why I thought Optimus killed him. I forgot about the seeker—I only saw Optimus running away from my brother to protect himself, and that was why I condemned him."

Finished with the story, Nightstalker gave a stiff and awkward nod before returning to her scrubbing. After a second of silence, Miko scoffed with disdain.

"I can't believe you believed in something so stupid."

Her rough denial was expected, but it still hurt. Nightstalker winced minutely, wings pressing together as she tried to ignore it, but she was surprised when someone took up for her.

"Miko, don't say that. She . . . She's sorry, so there's no need to be like that."

Nightstalker looked up in surprise at the bulky Autobot, but Miko's jaw popped open in hurt shock.

"I can't believe you'd side with her! You saw what she did to Optimus!"

Bulkhead frowned, uncertain about being the only one, but was willing to say, "Y-Yeah, I did, but . . . I also know she's really sorry. And she hasn't made any complaints about her punishments even when not flying has really got to be getting to her, so um . . . she—she's got my respect."

Nightstalker blinked wide at Bulkhead. That was it? That . . . was all it took to get him to sympathize with her? But—

Miko scowled. "You can't be serious! Well, YOU might be soft, but I'm not! She's not getting any forgiveness from me!"

Bulkhead frowned at Miko's obstinate tone. "Miko, you shouldn't say things like that."

"Oh yeah?" she sneered.

"Yeah," Bulkhead asserted, making his point even clearer by walking across the room to stand near Nightstalker. The bewildered femme stared at the bot she had never interacted with much. "She was just a kid, and she was hurting over her brother dying. I'm not holding that against her. Besides, she's made it clear that she really is sorry and is willing to try to make it up to us." He glowered back at Miko a moment saying, "Besides, if anyone deserves our anger, it's that 'Con," and he looked back at her, nodding, "and not Nightstalker."

Lubricant stung her eyes until she blinked it away. "Thanks," she said softly, a grateful smile making its way to her face. Bulkhead left Miko floored by his small speech. Bulkhead smiled back at her, and then, a sudden thought crossed Nightstalker's mind—

The Decepticon seeker.

Her optics widened in dumb shock. Bulkhead mirrored her face, confused, but Nightstalker gasped, leaping to her feet. Pressing a hand to her forehead, she gaped at herself, wondering exactly how slow she was going to continue being about this.

"Nights?"

Her nickname spilled from Bulkhead, the first time she remembered him using it, and her head snapped up. A pained and wondering expression came over her face, rendering the former Wrecker speechless for a moment, and Nightstalker whirled around to look at Optimus.

One look was all she needed—

He knew.

"Who was it?" she rasped, almost incapable of speaking she was so choked up with passion. The great Prime's brow furrowed, and Nightstalker leapt forward, desperation lacing through her eyes.

"Optimus, please!" she begged, spark beating into her chest until she was sure it would rupture. "You know who it was! You know who killed Fli-Ni—please, tell me, please! I have to know!" When the Prime failed to respond, optics darkening in worry, Nightstalker felt incredulous hurt cross her.

He wasn't going to tell her.

"Optimus, you know who killed him!" she repeated tightly, anger and pain nearly suffocating her words in her throat. "Who was it? Please, tell me!"

Finally, Optimus stated levelly, "Nightstalker, I do not believe telling you would resolve anything. It would only ignite your lust for revenge further—"

"I already want his energon!" Nightstalker cried out in shame, trembling as she pulled into herself. Crossing her arms and looking up with tortured optics, she rasped, "P-Please, Optimus. Who was it? Who was it REALLY?"

When he still refused to tell her, silently watching, Nightstalker felt her anger flare up and burst. "I thought we were going to be truthful with each other from now on!" she snapped, glaring at Optimus balefully as she backed away, hands clenching. The Prime didn't move, but the steadfast ground he kept almost seemed forced. "Thought this was the beginning of HONESTY between us!" she snarled sarcastically.

Optimus still held his silence. It infuriated her—it enraged her. She backed away again, wings perked stiffly as she hissed between her teeth. "Who was it?" she asked again, hating him more and more for keeping the answer from her. The high-pitched voice mocked her constantly with its screeching, _"Save him now, Autobot scum!"_

"Who was it?" she repeated, fists clenching. Optimus still withheld his silence. "Who killed my brother? Who killed him, Optimus, who killed my brother? No answer was forthcoming—and she wouldn't get an answer. Furious tears pricked her eyes that he withheld such important information from her. "Who killed my brother? Optimus, tell me, who killed my brother? Who killed him?" Her hateful pleading or demanding, it wouldn't stop, but Optimus didn't answer.

And he never did.

"Who killed my brother? Who killed him! _Who killed him! Who killed him! WHO KILLED MY BROTHER!"_

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**YAY Bulkhead! :D**

**Uh . . . Nights?**

**(she's being a bit bipolar . . . must need a dose of flying)**

**(she can't have it though. Moar bipolar the next chapter! :D )**

**Also, school starts this week, and since I'm a good kid and I study, updates will become irregular.**


	26. Break Down

**Author's Note:**

**CHECK IT OUT! This is Nightstalker! Her own fan art! Just remove astriks (*) http*:/*/browse.*deviantart.*com/?qh=§ion=&q=nightstalker#/d5bgnrt Thank you so much, ka-ju, for the amazing art!**

**And also, thanks to LadySuzaku for some of the dialogue she was playing around with and my inspiration for this conversation between Arcee and OP! :)**

**(and also, about the double-update, I totally forgot to actually POST the chapter before. Derp.)**

* * *

><p>"Optimus, I need a word."<p>

He halted at Arcee's flat tone. Honest to goodness, he was a bit surprised at her for speaking to him like that, but it could only mean that something was eating away at her again. He turned to her, spark swelling with compassion for her darkened optics while his mind steeled itself for whatever barbs she might throw at him.

"What is it, Arcee?"

She pressed her lips together as if she didn't want to say anything after all, and then she said in a clipped tone, "It's Nightstalker."

Optimus shifted. "What about her?"

Arcee's jaw set in the back halls of the base. Her optics darted as if to make sure they were alone, and she finally said lowly, "Look, I know you think you're protecting her." Optimus immediately felt himself stiffen. "And after what . . . _happened_ . . . I can understand you not wanting her to go off the deep end again."

Optimus looked down at Arcee with reservations. This was a confrontation. "What are you suggesting, Arcee?" he asked her seriously.

Her optics flickered, but she didn't once look away from his face. "I'm not suggesting anything. I'm saying she NEEDS to know the truth about her brother's killer."

This, coming from the same femme that disobeyed orders just to get her hands on Airachnid. Optimus shook his head and said, "Arcee, she does not need to be burdened with the truth. It will only distract her and push her to unpredictable tendencies . . . much like another good femme I know."

The reprimand didn't make Arcee so much as flinch. She was unrepentant of her bouts against Airachnid. "She has a _right_ to know the truth," Arcee stated again firmly, optics fixed unwavering on his own to show that she truly wanted this. "Optimus, after all this time believing _you_ were responsible for her brother's death and realizing only recently it was a 'Con, do you really think she's going to just let that go?"

Optimus felt his trigger finger twitch. He wanted to believe it, but deep in his spark, he feared Nightstalker was going to be consumed with the past just like Arcee, unable to live to her fullest.

Arcee's gaze darkened. "She _can't_, not until she knows who it was! I watched Tailgate DIE and it still hurts every day! She needs to know who the slagger was so she can be ready for him if she sees him again! Otherwise, she IS going to flip out, and there isn't going to be a Primus-forsaken thing you can do about it!"

Icy blue optics glared at each other. A tiny whisper started in Optimus's spark, but he pushed it aside quickly, unwilling to hear it. "Arcee, I do not wish her to become like you."

A minute flinch. "She already is," Arcee muttered quietly. "Optimus, this isn't just a means of her losing a partner like I did—it's deeper for her, engraved on her very spark! Fli-Ni was her brother! It's amazing she's still living if she lost her brother! You know how common spark breaks were when Cybertron fell into war—if anything, she deserves the chance to ease that pain."

Optimus shifted on his feet again, studying Arcee closely. In other words, Nightstalker had an incredible force of will to stay alive after her brother died, and she may or may not have had someone to help get her back on her feet. "Revenge is not the answer, Arcee," he rumbled to her.

"Maybe not for you, but for others it's the only thing they have." Arcee gave up looking at him, staring fixatedly past him. "Not all of us can be as selfless as you, Optimus. That's why you were picked as Prime and the rest of us were overlooked."

Optimus nodded. "Your concern for Nightstalker is noted."

Arcee jerked then, looking up with shocked optics before she scowled. "It's not concern. It's simple fact."

He just barely managed to keep an amused quirk of his lips tucked away. "Your opinion is noted."

She scowled again, looking away and crossing her arms. Then, Arcee pinned her glare at Optimus again. "So what's your problem?"

She blindsided him. "What do you mean?"

Arcee squared her shoulders at him. "You. The Optimus I know would never withhold the truth, no matter how painful. So what's your problem?"

Through sheer force of will, Optimus held his ground even when he heard Orion's amused laughing rise at his squirming. "I'm afraid I don't understand," he stated to her. Sometimes, it irked him that his sheer height and size couldn't intimidate her. "I am fine."

_Sure, sure you are._ Optimus tried not to scowl when Orion started to come back full force. _You keep telling yourself that, but you aren't really. Why not just tell Arcee? She isn't going to hate you. In fact, it would probably make her respect you more. She would sympathize, understand, and find the humanity in her leader. It's all she wants, and it's all you want . . . So why are you holding back? What are you afraid of?_

Arcee narrowed her optics. "No, you're not. What are you afraid of? Is it Nightstalker? If I was terrified of Airachnid after the torture chamber and Cliffjumper was terrified of Nightstalker, then it stands to reason that you fear her as well."

Optimus leveled luminous optics at Arcee. "That does not pertain to my reasons for keeping her brother's killer's identity from her."

"But it certainly explains why you've avoided her like the Plague."

Optimus refused to flinch, especially when Orion taunted with, _Of course, that's not the ONLY reason you've avoided her . . ._ A laugh, and Optimus forcefully focused on Arcee's accusing optics that were digging for information.

"Arcee," he said a bit more harshly than before, "this issue is none of your concern. You—"

"I'm inclined to disagree," she interrupted stolidly, still refusing to give him an inch. "If whatever it is affects my leader, it is of most concern."

Optimus's optics narrowed. "You are in no position to question my judgment," he grumbled with heavy warning.

Her fingers twitched, the only sign of her worry about pushing this far. "Optimus, you're always there to set us straight when our judgment is impaired, but who is there to correct you?"

The cutting remark of his decision burned, but what really slapped him across the face was the last part. Who, indeed? Orion? Ha, Orion was himself! And it wasn't as if Orion was helping in any shape, form, or fashion. But his Prime side wasn't helping the matter either. Could he possibly trust Arcee with his darkest secrets? Secrets that not even Ratchet knew about?

_There's nothing wrong with it,_ he heard Orion croon as he stared aloofly down at Arcee waiting for his next words. _Admit it. You've always had a soft spot for Arcee. You let her get away with insubordination one too many times to be an effective leader. You should have set her straight years ago—_

Optimus felt an irritated growl rumble from his chassis as he inwardly argued with himself. No! This was ridiculous! He wasn't going to allow himself to twist Arcee's image into one of lust the way he had done Nightstalker!

_Have you ever stopped to consider it isn't lust?_ Orion tutted his tongue, and Optimus felt his servos clench. _You've always been fond of Arcee . . . dare I say affectionate?_

A soft voice cut through his plight. "Optimus . . . ?"

His optics popped open. Arcee's worried whisper of his name brought him back to the matter at hand, and he finally depressed a sigh from his systems.

"Do not trouble yourself," he finally told her. For once, he noticed the brief flicker of hurt across her features. "You have enough on your shoulders to be burdened with mine."

"You carry the burden of leadership," Arcee said tentatively, shifting minutely. "That's a pretty steep calling."

"And one I must take seriously—including withholding the information Nightstalker seeks until such a given time where it will not affect her so dramatically."

Arcee let out a frustrated vent, but she didn't press the matter anymore. "Yes, sir." She turned smartly on her heel and started to stride off, but she halted suddenly. After a moment, she added softly, "Look, Optimus . . . I can't speak for any of the others, but I can speak for myself. And, if you ever need to talk things out with someone, I'm here for you. We all are. You do realize that, right?"

For some reason, her words saddened him. Optimus turned, spark sinking heavily in his chassis as he walked off. To substitute for all the words he couldn't say, he could offer only two in their place:

"Thank you."

* * *

><p>"And it was written in the covenant of Primus that when the 47 spheres align, a perpetual conflict will culminate upon a world forged from chaos. And the weak shall perish in the shadow of a rising darkness."<p>

"No sky is raining fire?"

Ratchet shrugged at Arcee's sarcastic remark. "Goes without saying. It _is_ a doom prophecy after all."

"I say it's a load of hooey," Bulkhead proclaimed with disinterest.

Nightstalker listened in on their conversation halfheartedly on the third week of her punishment. Halfway through, she was halfway through . . . she could do this—maybe, by _Primus_ she needed out . . . She shivered to herself. Frag the doom prophecy, she needed to fly, and now!

"I'd always assumed the ancients were referring to our home planet," Ratchet said in confusion, "but seeing that Cybertron has been dark for eons . . ."

"And considering what has befallen this planet since Megatron's arrival here . . ."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Bulkhead slowed him down, unable to think of what they were suggesting. Nightstalker scrubbed harder at the infuriating metal sheet she worked on, cursing the white paint flecks colorfully in every language on the Earth including her own to distract her mind from the walls closing in. "We've known about these superstitions for ages and never gave them a second thought!"

"Why all the ominous rumblings now?" Arcee echoed.

Nightstalker hissed shortly to herself, rubbing the sheet harder and harder. God-forsaken slag-filled dump of waste from Unicron's afterburner, these fragging little white specks from the pit wouldn't fucking come off! God-damn these squishy humans and their bitching expressive language with every shitty explicative ready to shove up your ass! And Primus break her fragging wings so she couldn't escape this hell-hole that mocked her existence as a whiny glitch who _needed_ to fly!

"Because the planetary alignment," Optimus stated shortly, "to which the prophecy occurs is nearly upon us."

"And it would seem its end point," Ratchet finished, "is Earth."

Nightstalker's wings had ceased fanning a long time ago and now were pricked stiffly up. Bulkhead gave a suddenly worried laugh and tried to pass it off with failed bravado.

"Heh . . . Crazy coincidence, r-right?"

Arcee, however, was serious. "How long are we talking?"

Nightstalker gritted her teeth, scrubbing the metal sheet even though the pesky white bits had finally come off. Oh _Primus_ she needed out, she needed to fly, she needed the skies—!

"A few days," Ratchet said. "At most."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the Autobots until Optimus spoke gravely. "However unsettling this revelation may be, I am more concerned about those who might believe that the prophecy speaks to them alone—"

Slamming the rag down with finality, Nightstalker growled and stood, stalking away. Each Autobot in the room recoiled in shock, but Ratchet narrowed his optics.

"Nightstalker, get—"

She whirled on him so suddenly he couldn't finish his order. "FRAG OFF!"

Her voice echoed in the quiet silo, and she quickly fled the room, fists clenched tight and wings fluttering madly. She ended up breaking into a run down the hall and cowered in her room. The door crashed shut and she flung herself on her tattered berth, quaking.

_Primus_ . . . She needed OUT! She bit a mouthful of the berth, whimpering. Primus, the walls were closing in! She was only halfway through this hell and she was already breaking? She couldn't!

"_Son of a mother-fucking glitch!_" Nightstalker raged, kicking the berth and clawing the wall.

Oh sure, it had been difficult the first time she had been without flight, locked up and quarantined by the Autobots. But this time . . . Primus, this time it was worse! And what made it so pit-slagging worse was that she had to RESIST the temptation to just go fly. She moaned to herself. THAT was going over well.

She recited the alphabet in her mind to try and calm herself. She counted up numbers when she finished with that and when that even failed to help, she focused on the day. She went through her mind that Bumblebee was bringing in Raf from school, Miko was in detention, Jack was at work, and Cliffjumper was taking a joy ride instead of listening to Optimus's pontificating about a doom prophecy. Nightstalker was supposed to be finishing up those last five sheets of synthetic energon formula and then perform a defrag process on Ratchet's computers.

A knock scared her out of her protoform. "Nights?"

Cliffjumper! What was he doing here? Oh—joy ride. Must be done. "Go away!" she called back, the sound muffled by a mouthful of her berth.

Instead, she heard the door to her berth room open up and Cliffjumper walked through a bit nervously, hanging near the open door. "Um . . . Uh . . . Bumblebee's on the way. He got worried about you and asked me to check on you."

"I'm fine!" she snapped into the berth. "Go away!" Primus kill him right now and shut that door before she did it herself! She twitched with the urge to run past him and _enjoy_ herself for once by flying—

"Well uh . . . Okay, that was a stupid lie. I actually . . . came to see you myself. Are you okay?"

"I said I'm fragging fine!" she growled, kicking the berth for good measure as she vainly controlled the lust for flight that would condemn her to two extra weeks of punishment.

She heard a frustrated click from Cliffjumper. "Well, I just wanted to see if I could help—"

"Then you can help by getting the frag out and leaving me alone!"

The instant the words were out of her mouth she regretted them, but the damage had already been done. She heard his metal hinge up as if attacked, and he snapped back, "Fine then! Stay back here and rot for all I care!" The door slammed shut behind him.

Nightstalker groaned into the berth. And there he went. He had tried to be nice, the first gesture she had seen from Cliffjumper since she had attacked Optimus, and she practically threw it back in his face. He wanted to help her. He was being nice. Quite possibly, he had finally forgiven her for what she had done and had come to talk about it in private, but what had she done? Yelled at him and told him to get the frag out.

"I am such an idiot."

She kicked the berth and the wall again for good measure, and successfully brought her mind away from flying. Instead, she wallowed in self-pity and anger at herself for being dumb enough to do something like that. What a way to get on his good side!

Another knock sounded. *Nights?*

A relieved sigh poured out of her. "In here, Bee." The door opened again, and she heard Bumblebee's steps take him inside, and she heard the click of the door. "Bumblebee, I'm an idiot."

A faint laugh. *I know. But you're my idiot*

"Shut up."

With yet ANOTHER pep talk from Bumblebee, Nightstalker was finally able to leave her berth room and intermingle with the other bots again. Well, at least get back to scrubbing the last few metal sheets of energon formula—turned out, the last one she had attacked so vigorously had been squeaky clean, so she moved on to the last four. Then eventually three, then two, then one—and finally finished! She nearly did a dance for joy when Ratchet cleared those Primus-forsaken metal sheets from her daily duties, and Jack called her over to show her a stupidly funny Mars Cat. Without any words, his gesture had shown that he forgave her even though his guardian was dead-set against it. The day turned to night and while the guardians left, Optimus, Ratchet, and Cliffjumper left for recharge—Cliffjumper glaring at her the whole way—and left her to defrag the computers.

The process took all night.

By the time morning had come and Ratchet took over, double-checking her work with distrust; Nightstalker yawned, tired—a blip from Fowler had her jump, and then cringe when he started spouting orders in his commander voice, loud and harsh.

Exhausted and short-tempered, Nightstalker barely heard their conversation about the Decepticons attacking again, but the bots congregated as they got ready for their next mission, Optimus choosing to take Bulkhead, Arcee, and Cliffjumper with him. What she DID hear loud and clear, was the ground bridge blasting open.

She whirled. Her spark rate kicked into overdrive as she stared at the twinkling blue lights—oh Primus.

Freedom.

Nightstalker took off running before she realized she had, and before she could get to the tunnel, she heard someone shout, "Nights, no!" and then someone tackled her to the ground, effectively stopping her from getting outside.

Nightstalker snarled. Arching beneath Cliffjumper who had her pinned, she snapped, "Cliffjumper, get off! Get off of me!"

"Not a chance!"

Swindling up a hand, Nightstalker attacked him, hitting her claws across his audio receptors as hard as she could. Cliffjumper yelped in pain, protesting, "Nights, stop it!" and grabbed her, pinning her back to the floor when she tried to run for the lights of freedom.

Her voice rose, yelling in delirious frustration when Cliffjumper sat his fat aft on her legs and held her wrists pinned to her shoulders, her shoulders pinned to the ground. "Get off of me, you mother fragger! I'm going to fly, and there's not a Primus-forsaken thing you can do about it!"

Cliffjumper jerked his head at the wide-eyed Autobots. *Just go! And shut off that slagging ground bridge!*

"Over my dead body!" Nightstalker screamed, bucking beneath Cliffjumper. She heard Optimus telling them to roll out, and she hollered, "Get the frag off, you dip stick!"

*Nights—*

"Eat scrap and deactivate!" Snarling again, she heard the bridge shut, and she let out a desperate wail, the walls closing in with extreme claustrophobia. "Cliff, please! I need out! I need OUT!"

Cliffjumper's optics dilated, thick with conflict. *Nights, you can't* he whispered, tightening his hands on her. She wiggled and trashed, straining herself in the effort to get to the only other exit—the tunnel. If she could just get through the tunnel, she could make it outside—!

"Frag off!" Nightstalker screamed at him with maniacal desperation. "Go reformat yourself with a lug wrench! Rot in the pit!" One of her wings was pinching painfully beneath her body, and Nightstalker arched, snarling in blind fury. Her orange optics danced with that slightly insane quality that scared Cliffjumper to his core.

"You all make me want to die! Every time I look in your all's optics—I see how much you hate me, I see how much you distrust me, and you'd rather me just rust myself into deactivation! I swear Ratchet takes pleasure in my captivity while I'm slowly going crazy! I—I'll never be good enough for you all! I'm not Autobot material! I should have died trying to save you! I should have been terminated for betraying the Decepticons! I should have been executed for what I did to you! And I fragging should have been tortured to a slow death for what I did to Optimus! I'll never be good enough for ANY of you, so why don't you just kill me now? Put me out of my misery you slag-sucking glitch! Just kill me now!"

Cliffjumper winced with every hateful word she threw at him—lots of it was directed towards herself, a kind of consuming self-loathing for being a torturer that rose to the forefront of her mind until she cursed herself to Hell and the Pit and back. She blamed Cliffjumper from keeping her from the one thing that was going to make her feel better—flying. She screamed at him, called him the foulest things with unnerving fluency, and she threatened him so sinisterly that it caused his metal to tremble. She wept so heartbrokenly that he nearly did let her go; she plead with such desperation that it caused an upheaval of unrest to tear through Cliffjumper and even the slightest twinge of clemency from Ratchet.

But he didn't once let her up.

Finally, she began to calm. Her anger and tears and frustrations spent, she lied limp beneath Cliffjumper. He eyed her warily, still a bit put off at her show of an unbalanced mind.

"You okay?"

She blinked at him. "I wouldn't let go yet."

So he kept sitting on her and holding her pinned to the floor.

Eventually, she took a deep breath and looked away from him. "Sorry for the mental breakdown."

Cliffjumper shrugged, lip tilting just a mite before fading. "Sure. Can I let you up?"

She paused. A pained expression came across her face. "Can you get me some stasis cuffs?"

He nodded. "Be right back. Can I trust you not to leave?"

She nodded. "I won't leave."

And, true to her word, when Cliffjumper left to fetch the cuffs for her wings, she didn't leave—

Especially not when Arcee, Bumblebee, and Raf returned, the precious young human dying in the femme's arms.


	27. Rising Tensions

**Author's Note:**

**Look up "Dance With The Devil Prime" on YouTube and watch the first video! It's my awesome inspiration!**

* * *

><p>Megatron.<p>

Nightstalker sat curled up on the floor, watching with sickening apprehension as Mrs. Darby and Ratchet poured their hearts and minds out over Raf. Ratchet's exclamation over his tools being all wrong for Raf bled of frustration, and seeing the CMO worked up enough to throw his own instruments of healing across the room was enough to make Nightstalker's spark pain for him.

It was Megatron.

Nightstalker seethed on the inside at the 'Con, and yet she felt conflicted at the thought—she owed her life to him. Much less, she knew how tender he could be, so his low blow at Bumblebee and Raf had her shaking.

Megatron.

How could she forgive him for this?

*I—I'll slag you into scrap for this, Megatron!*

Nightstalker's helm jerked up, and her spark skipped a beat as Bumblebee slammed his frustrations into the wall so hard that it cracked beneath the pressure. Heads jerked up to the despairing scout, and Arcee jumped him, pinning him to the wall before he could do any more damage.

"Bee, listen! You think I don't know what it feels like to watch a partner— . . . harmed . . ."

The slip in her speech was noticeable though she tried to cover it up. Nightstalker jumped to her feet—here she was, wallowing in her worry, and Bumblebee needed her. By Primus she wished she was even half the femme Arcee was—strong, supportive, so full of determination . . .

"Revenge won't help Raf right now. You need to keep your emotions _in check._"

Bumblebee's big, sad eyes shifted to Raf as Arcee let him go, and he muttered something unintelligible as he pressed his servo to his forehead.

Standing up quietly, Nightstalker walked to Bumblebee. He sank down on the edge of one of the medical berths, holding his hanging head in both hands. The defeated position pulled at Nightstalker's wounded spark—

She knew what it was like to lose a brother.

Since he wouldn't look up, Nightstalker knelt at his feet, ducking her head so she could look up into his face. His optics saw her, but refused to register, whirring wide and sad. Nightstalker snaked a hand up to hold behind his neck.

"Hey," she said softly. He blinked. "Shh . . . Raf's going to be fine."

Bumblebee's voice hitched, and he said quietly, *Please . . . Don't promise me that*

Leaning up on her knees, Nightstalker pressed her face to Bumblebee's and felt her heart grieve for the young scout. "Bee . . . Don't give up on him. You've got to believe that he's going to get better, or else we've lost even before we started."

Bumblebee hid his face in his servos, fingers gripping tightly with a muffled desperation. *But . . . If he really did . . . It'd hurt so much worse . . .*

Nightstalker shook her head. "No. I have faith in Ratchet and Mrs. Darby. The finest medic, the finest nurse—combined, they know what they're doing. All right? Easy . . ."

His arms suddenly wrapped around her, and Nightstalker felt her spark jump when he buried his face in her neck cables. *What if . . . Nights, what if . . . he really does . . . die?*

Her spark hurt. She kissed the top of his head. "Do you want honesty, or do you want comfort?"

*. . . Both*

Nightstalker sighed at the impossibility he presented to her. After a moment, she let her fingers knead in that spot between his wings to relax him. "Bee . . . If he dies . . . This may sound harsh, but it's not the end of the world." The muffled sound of a sob caught in the scout's throat. She patted him. "I know. Sounds mean, but . . . I know. I moved on. And if I can let go of Fli-Ni and live without half my spark, you can honor Raf by letting go and keeping living."

A small trickle of lubricant began to slide down her collarbone. *Nights . . . How did you do it? You're so strong . . . to be able to do that . . .*

Nightstalker shook her head and kissed the top of his head again. "I don't know. I just . . . did. Guess somewhere in me knew he'd want me to live to my fullest." She rested her cheek on his head and heavily decompressed air. "He always promised me we'd get off the streets. He promised me a big house, as much as I ever wanted to fuel on, and a pretty paint job. He always fancied me in . . . yellow, actually. Or pink. Or orange. It was always some ridiculously bright color, usually yellow." Nightstalker paused, realizing she was rambling a little.

She hugged Bumblebee comfortingly, murmuring, "You'll never stop missing him. But that doesn't matter—cause you have nothing to miss. He's right here."

*For now*

"And he'll stay here." Nightstalker left it at that, feeling her own wounds bleeding. She closed her optics, and her wings tried to fan (but were unsuccessful because of the cuffs) as she remembered the screech of the taunting seeker. Optimus knew who he was. It infuriated Nightstalker, but through it all, she somehow trusted the Prime's judgement. Through it all, she always believed Optimus had made the correct decisions with her. That was what surprised her the most.

"Jack, help me get Raf to the car. He's going to the emergency room."

Mrs. Darby's clipped order made Bumblebee's head jerk up and his whole body to stiffen.

"Nurse Darby," Ratchet said gravely as Nightstalker disentangled herself from Bumblebee, "Your doctors won't be able to comprehend what's afflicting him. Not without a decade of study."

"I don't have time to argue," she said brusquely.

Ratchet seemingly ignored her comment, continuing, "The effects of an energon blast on an Autobot can be devastating enough, but this is a HUMAN." He paused. "I'm not getting any readings . . . How could I not have seen this! Rafael has been infected with DARK energon!"

Everyone's head snapped to him. Bumblebee stood up, nearly knocking Nightstalker over in the process. Wait . . .

What?

"If dark energon is devouring Raf from the inside out," Ratchet monologued as he scanned the tiny human, "we must expel it. And fast. The only possible way I know." Nightstalker's optics popped when he whirled around and grabbed his syringe, bellowing, "I need energon!"

A shocked look crossed Mrs. Darby's face. "Wait. You said energon was _devastating_ to humans!"

"Under normal circumstances, quite," Ratchet replied, hand clamped around the tube. Nightstalker watched in utter horrified fascination at his explanation. "But I am relying on the dark matter currently invading Rafael's body to meet it head on!"

Before the doctor had a chance to explain what was going on in any more detail, the monitor of Raf's heart began to sputter erratically. Bumblebee jumped forward, extending his arm and allowing Ratchet to take the donation of energon as Raf's heart fell fully into cardiac arrest.

Panic tore across Nightstalker's sensors. No—NO! This wasn't supposed to happen! Her spark seized in terror, and she literally took a step back until she stumbled and fell on her aft. Not—Not Raf! Not Bee—he shouldn't have to suffer through the spark break!

The heart beat increased rapidly, almost impossibly fast for a heart as it struggled to stay beating—the blue lights flashed. It burned through Nightstalker's processor, and she heard her brother scream; the bright blue energon; the flash of the bomb.

Then, a heartbeat slowly steadying.

Nightstalker opened her optics, trembling on the floor as she heard Nurse Darby's voice state with relief, "Pulse rate is stabilizing."

Her fearful spark sang when she heard his voice.

"Bee?"

* * *

><p>Nightstalker barely heard the conversation—Optimus limping back into the silo with the help of Ratchet and Arcee. Their words buzzed around her head like flies.<p>

Unlike Bumblebee who had bounced back perfectly fine knowing that Raf was all right, Nightstalker found herself shaken. It was just . . . too close. It hurt—Primus, it still scared her, and he was perfectly fine now, albeit a little weak! She refused the shudder that wanted to creep up her spine. Oh, Megatron . . . How you complicated things. Here she was, suffering a debt, and yet she wanted to strangle him for hurting Raf.

The fates could be cruel sometimes—

"I've heard enough."

Nightstalker felt her broodings jerked out into the real world by an exasperated Nurse Darby. "Jack, please, help me get Raf into the car."

Nightstalker's mind chugged to a halt. Wait . . . WHAT?

Bumblebee shared in her shocked worry. *What? Y-You can't just take him . . .*

Nightstalker felt her jaw slacking a little. Really? Jack trailed behind his mom, sharing in the slap to the face she gave them all. "B-But—Mom, I thought he was doing better?"

"Raf needs to be examined by REAL doctors," she said condescendingly.

The crest fallen, utterly HURT look at overcame Ratchet was nearly enough to make Nightstalker go up and hug him—_almost._ After all, he still viewed her as "dirty traitor" so it was best not to push his buttons.

"And Raf's family needs to know what happened." She sent them all a scathing glance. "His REAL family."

A faint squeak caught in Bumblebee's vocals—it was like hearing a puppy get kicked. Nightstalker stiffened, but immediately moved forward to squeeze Bumblebee's servo.

"But Mom, Raf's family can't protect him! Not like they can."

"June," Optimus's deep baritone finally said, and Nightstalker felt her spark jump when he stood up—he shouldn't be up yet! He nearly wobbled on his feet! "It deeply grieves me that I have failed." Then, her spark swirled into mush.

As always, taking the blame when it shouldn't be cast to him. She felt her wings try to droop sadly, only to be constricted by the cuffs. Why did he do that? He sat there and took the blame of Raf getting hurt when it clearly wasn't his fault—he took the fall for them all. Even when NO ONE could have done anything different to stop it! Self-righteous, pompous, compassionate leader . . . She didn't really realize how much it bothered her until now. Nightstalker's servo tightened on Bumblebee's hand. He bore so much weight on his shoulders . . . it shocked her with how erect he could keep them and never let them slump.

"But I will do everything in my power to insure that no harm comes to our human friends . . . or _any_ human ever again."

June stilled at his words. Primus, he was perfect. It was no wonder he was chosen to be Prime. Everything about him—the gentle optics, the compassionate spark, the swift blade of justice, and the understanding—she couldn't quite comprehend him, but that was all right with her. In fact, it rather gave her . . . something to look up to.

He embodied what she wasn't—honorable, compassionate, and pure. Through his teachings, she knew what was wrong and what was right now, and it gave her purpose, something to strive towards to be better than the femme she was before. He gave her a focal-point mech in her life (that wasn't a brother or someone she fragged). He could tell her what she did was good or bad, he could punish her, he could comfort her, and he provided the main center of growth from her transformation from a Decepticon torturer into an Autobot. She wanted to please him, for him to be proud of her, and undoing the mess she had made of her acceptance was difficult on her because she had hurt him, scared him, and _disappointed_ him. The latter somehow hurt the most, to see that disappointment crease the brow of the one she looked up to so much.

Actually . . . He kind of provided the father figure she never had.

"Optimus," June said seriously, "they're children. They do not belong in your world. They should be worrying about grades! Prom dates! Pimples! Not their own survival!"

"Mom," Jack said with blatant obviousness, "dark energon is pouring out of the Earth. It doesn't do that! This could be about everyone's survival, not just ours!"

She ignored him. "You're coming with me! All three of you!" She turned her glare on Optimus again. "And they will NOT be coming back!"

Nightstalker's hand clamped tighter on Bumblebee's. No . . . She couldn't actually do that . . . could she? Nightstalker's spark beat harder. She couldn't take them—the entire reason she had defected from Decepticon!

But of course . . . she should know Optimus by now.

"I understand," Optimus said with the resignation of a leader knowing when a mother's rule usurped his—yet, also with a touch of sadness.

"That's it?" Miko cut in. She scowled up at the Prime, putting her hands on her hips. "After all we've been through together, "see ya?" What about OUR freedom to choose?"

"That may fly on their planet," June said sharply, "but not here on Earth." Raf climbed submissively into the car, a little too young to be defying his elders. June fixed a glare on Miko. She pointed to the open door of her car. "Get in."

Miko scoffed back. "Do you _really_ expect me to ride in a non-transforming vehicle?"

"Miko, I'm serious."

"You're not my mother."

Bulkhead stepped forward. "Miko—"

"Neither are you!"

Bulkhead recoiled at her sudden vehemence, and Nightstalker felt a sigh decompress from her body. Raf couldn't defy her. He wouldn't. She felt her servo nearly crushed in Bumblebee's.

"Well I am yours," June said, arching a brow at Jack. "Let's go."

Arcee's footsteps cut into the heavy silence. Jack looked back at her, and she just gave a shrug, but inwardly, the blue femme's chassis was pained—she was losing another partner.

"She is your mother," she said quietly.

Nightstalker felt her spark swell until it nearly burst at the mature move Jack made—standing up for himself. Something that even Nightstalker found she couldn't do sometimes.

"I'm staying. . . . I'm sorry."

An incredulous look crossed June's face, and she scowled, turning and marching away, slamming the car door shut on Raf before he could get his bearing with the strength of numbers.

Bumblebee stepped after them, stretching a hand out towards Raf. The little human was easily seen through the back window of the car, hands pressed against the glass. The white car disappeared from sight, taking Raf with it.

Bumblebee gave a soft coo, and his wings drooped. Nightstalker came around to his front, and she tilted her head back to look him in the face. She reached up her hands to cup his cheeks tenderly. His optics dilated.

*I didn't _lose_ him . . . but I still lost him*

* * *

><p>Honestly, it only took about a minute to cheer Bumblebee up—only about a minute to make him realize that he had to go get Raf because the Earth was seriously collapsing in on itself.<p>

Then, the scrap really hit the fan when they realized Unicron literally WAS the Earth.

…

Nightstalker literally gaped at Optimus as he said, "Agent Fowler, I do not believe that Earth became Unicron's home, but rather that with time and gravitational force, debris collected around the slumbering titan, forming your Earth itself."

Nightstalker felt her optics pop. And he was only awakening now due to the gravitational pull of the planetary alignment! This—this was—impossible! And if the dark energon was pouring from the Earth, how was that going to affect the humans and their atmosphere? Suddenly feeling sick to the stomach, Nightstalker stepped up near Optimus intending to ask him. She tapped her claw on his hip and asked, "Optimus—"

A hand slammed into her, and Nightstalker gasped thinly when she felt herself slammed into the wall. That servo pinned her there, wings crunching between her back and the wall, the hand pushing so forcefully that it nearly squashed her flat.

Silence overtook the room except for Nightstalker's rapid in cycles and Optimus's heavy breaths. His wide optics were dilated tight, dancing and jumping with . . .

Fear.

Nightstalker gaped. A moment passed where Optimus made a visible effort to control the raging fear behind his optics, and guilt cut across his features as he realized what he had done. He released her so suddenly that she fell on her aft with a squeak. His gears ground audibly as he stood straight, optics still jumping a little as he looked down on her.

He finally pressed a hand over his optics. "I am sorry," he said heavily. He took a step back. "I should not have done that."

Nightstalker noted two things. One: Optimus was so stressed over Unicron and still haunted by what she had done to him that he had a momentary snap. Two: he took a step back from her. Her spark pained. He was still afraid. He needed room.

"Easy, Optimus," she heard Bulkhead say, and she squeaked when he picked her up, sitting her on his shoulder. "C'mon, Nights."

But, he didn't take her away. He just moved back to his original position at the side, and Nightstalker again noticed Optimus's optics cut to her. She wiggled, but Bulkhead's grip was solid. "Bulkhead," she muttered tightly, "let me go."

"Not a chance," he told her easily. "You're one of us. You deserve to know what's going on."

Nightstalker shook her head, avoiding Optimus's gaze. "I know what's going on. I can catch up with battle plans later. Let me go."

"Nights—"

"Bulkhead, I understand that it's not that I'm not wanted. But I know repercussions when I see them, so let GO. If not for my sake, for Optimus's."

She heard Optimus's worried grumble. "Nightstalker, do not—"

She slipped off Bulkhead's shoulder, shaking her head. "Don't give me that, Optimus. You need to focus, not worry about me." And so saying, she left, wandering the halls. Bumblebee kept her updated through the public comm. link despite being worried that she was alienating herself from the group, and once again she had to persist that she knew it would be easier on Optimus's processor.

As she walked the halls of the silo, Nightstalker groused to herself about that. Optimus may not be taking it easier now. He might be thinking the same thing—that she closed herself off because of him, and that was no doubt going to bother him. Nightstalker huffed in irritation. She was just trying to be helpful! Why couldn't anyone see that? She appreciated their concern, but what needed to be done needed to be done.

She sighed in frustration. Her wings strained against the cuffs. Great. Now that she wasn't doing anything, in the midst of all the excitement that Unicron brought up, she found herself wanting to fly again. More than halfway through now. Seventeen days left. She could handle it. Nightstalker took a deep breath, straining to flex her cramping wings, but honestly, she was glad they were there. It was a rather shameful thought, but she knew she had to do what she had to do.

:Hey, Nights?: she heard Bumblebee say over the public comm. link. :Optimus is out looking for Unicron now. If you want to come back to the front you can:

:Be there in a minute:

She rolled her optics at his precious concern. She wasn't taking it personally—she knew what she did, she knew the consequences, and she knew about repercussions. She had seen it with Cliffjumper all too easily.

Nightstalker suddenly halted in the hallway. Her spark gave a painful squeeze.

How many more Autobots would she end up hurting?

Shaking off the feeling, she went back to the main room of the silo, hoping that Optimus would be fine as he—wait.

WAIT.

UNICRON?!

They let him go after Unicron ALONE?

Sudden exasperation and worry seized Nightstalker for Optimus. "Holy bot fragging son of a Cessna!" She bolted down the halls. And she would bet her wings that Optimus was the one to tell them all to stay behind!

True to her word, Nightstalker skidded to a halt with a chill hearing a foreboding voice speaking. Not sneering, not gloating, not even threatening—the creepiest thing was that it merely stated its words like they were the one sole truth and NOTHING would prove otherwise.

_"Unicron is power incarnate! And you, the last of the Primes, shall perish!"_

"I take that as a yes," Ratchet said with a slight snarl, a certain pull of his lips reminding Nightstalker of when he had been hyped up on synthetic energon. "We're on our way!"

All five bots started to go, Nightstalker staring agape, when Optimus cut in quickly, "Negative!" Nightstalker snapped her jaw shut. She had known it. She had KNOWN what was going on in that stupid-aft Prime's head—! "Unicron cannot be defeated by sheer force! He wants ME, Ratchet! This fight must be mine alone."

With that, the Prime terminated the link and left his five Autobots utterly stunned—six, if you counted Nightstalker. When they all glanced at each other warily at the orders, Nightstalker couldn't help but give a faint scoff. Her voice was easily heard in the silence—it was that quiet.

"You can't be scrapping me."

Arcee whirled, narrowing her optics at her. "And just what's that supposed to mean?"

Nightstalker glared back at the hapless Autobots. "That you're all microchip morons. I mean—seriously!" She threw her hand towards the ground bridge tunnel. "Are you all outta your fragging minds?" She enunciated her next words carefully for them to understand. "WHAT IS YOUR MALFUNCTION? Optimus needs you guys and you're just sitting here like obsolete lug nuts!"

"You heard our orders!" Ratchet growled at her, and Nightstalker quailed a moment before narrowing her optics right back. "This is Optimus's battle!"

"Optimus's battle my aft, more like his grave!" Nightstalker let her orange optics cut across the stunned Autobots. "He's the fragging PRIME! Without him to defeat Unicron, we're all neck deep in scrap anyways! Has it ever occurred to you that since HE'S the target, you should be protecting him, not the other way around?" When they failed to move, Nightstalker scowled and stalked forward. "Cliffjumper, get these cuffs off of me."

He recoiled like she had slapped him. "Wh-What? No! Nights, you barely have enough training yet, you'll just be a liability—and if you do that you'll get two more weeks—"

"_Frag me flying_! Cliffjumper!" She whirled on him, making him step back at the passion in her optics. "If you guys are going to sit on your rusty tin cans then I'm not going to let Optimus die out there all alone! Now get me out of this thing, I'm GOING to help him!"

She jerked her back towards Cliffjumper so he could take off the stasis cuffs, but the moment stretched. Finally, she heard him say, "No."

Nightstalker faced him in utter shock. "What? You can't—"

"I said no," he repeated, blue optics glinting as he turned to glare at the other Autobots. "You need to stay here. I'M going."

Ratchet sputtered. "Y-You can't honestly be serious! You heard Optimus's orders—"

"And he's currently glitched out of his processor if he thinks sacrificing himself like this is going to do us any good," Cliffjumper snarled. He threw an angry hand towards Nightstalker. "She's right! And I don't give a frag about what anyone thinks about her, she's one of us in my book, no matter what she's done!" Nightstalker recoiled in shock. "You might leave Optimus to rust out there, but I'm not!" He stalked over to the ground bridge tunnel, whirling and sending them a cocky grin. "Now if anyone wants to join me and kick some Unicron tailpipe, then let's go already!"

The decision was unanimous.


	28. A Chance

**Author's Note:**

**Sorry it's short. And good Lord this chapter took forever to write. Was suffering an annoying writer's block momentarily, and then when I finally thought I had it written so good, my computer froze! D:I lost over half the chapter cause my autosave was set for some ridiculous span of time and I had to rewrite everything after her meeting with Megatron. I still don't really like how it turned out. It felt so much stronger the first time.**

**C'est la vie, here it is anyways, and hopefully the next arc will be greater than the last!**

* * *

><p>An alliance with Megatron . . .<p>

Even after what he had done to Raf.

The thought made everything all the more conflicting for Nightstalker. She sat crisscross on the gangway where the humans stood, staring at the—for now—empty ground bridge tunnel. Everyone was arguing over the proposed alliance.

All in all, her spark was really starting to feel compassionate to Ratchet, despite his disdain towards her—she could hear the stress in every word he spoke.

"I know that desperate times call for desperate measures," Ratchet snarled, "but bringing Megatron HERE?" He paced restlessly.

"How can you even THINK of letting that monster near these children after what he did to Raf!" June exploded as well, hands coming to rest on the youngest human's shoulders.

"He will be closely monitored," Optimus stated firmly, "and only allowed to linger long enough to send us on our journey." His voice dropped to a growl. "Not one moment more."

"What's to stop the 'Con from calling in an air strike if he knows where you live?" Fowler put in.

Optimus fixated his optics on him. "By ground bridging Megatron here, he will be unable to get a fix on our coordinates."

Jack finally spoke, the pinch in his brow speaking more. "Optimus, what's going to happen to you when all your . . . Matrix energy's released?"

Nightstalker's helm looked up with sudden interest.

"The power within the Matrix has not previously utilized in this particular manner," he said matter of factly, turning and walking a few paces away.

"But . . . you have an idea, don't you?"

The thunderous silence was all Nightstalker needed to hear—

He didn't plan to make it out alive.

It hit like a punch in the gut. Her wings strained against her cuffs. This was so wrong. He gave and gave and gave, sacrificed and sacrificed and sacrificed . . . and yet, he stood there, ready to forfeit his own life for them when in reality they had done so little for him. Nightstalker dropped her helm.

It was so wrong. For the first time in her life, she had someone to look up to like a father, and he was getting ripped away even before she could truly learn all she needed to. All for the sake of wretched humanity that would tear itself to shreds anyways.

_Oh Primus . . . We don't deserve him._

He put his hands on his hips, and his words decompressed on a sigh, "Autobots, if humankind is to be saved," he turned to face them, "I have no choice but to proceed."

_Yes, you do, but you always choose the outdated chivalry . . ._

"But you do."

_No, I don't, I'm strapped to the base and locked in stasis cuffs. I wouldn't do it anyways . . ._

A little bit ashamed at that last confession to herself, Nightstalker wished desperately that she could use the private comm. link. She wanted to persuade him not to do it—he owed them nothing, after all. They should owe HIM for every hit he took, every drop of energon, every scar decorated across his body—beatings he bore for them freely. She wanted to tell him what he meant to her, that she couldn't let go of a connection like that when she had never experienced a father—even if he couldn't act on it because he was a leader. It was enough to know he was there.

And then, she heard the bots professing that they would do it. Go down with him? For . . . Miko. Jack. Raf. Nightstalker felt her optics shift to the humans she had defected sides for, those precious humans . . . She felt her spark cry out in conflicted agony. Lose them? Or lose him? She couldn't choose, couldn't pick . . . !

But she didn't have to. Things moved on even without her word. After all, she was confined to base—even if she had wanted to help, she wasn't allowed to. And so Nightstalker knelt as the ground bridge blasted open, and Megatron prowled through.

Her spark rate rocketed. She had forgotten all about him coming! Too consumed in her own thoughts, she hadn't even given thought to Megatron. She was in his direct line of sight—he had seen her the instant he had walked through the bridge. A little chill crept up her circuits—it was surreal seeing the Autobots' most sworn enemy strolling right into their base of operations.

He cast his optics bemusedly about the room—off colored purple optics. Optics she didn't know. "So, this is where the magic happens." A familiar smirk chased its way across his features, though. "Quaint."

Nightstalker knew the guns were leveled at him; the humans were speaking to him; his tone was contemptuous of all of them, lethal towards Jack. Jack didn't flinch though, much to Nightstalker's pride. She quivered on the inside when Megatron set those eerie purple optics on her, and a slow, foreboding smile spread across his face.

"Nightstalker," he said with played amicableness. Nightstalker swallowed as he walked towards her. She was more surprised Optimus didn't stop him. "My, what time has passed since I last saw you. Aligning yourself with the enemy, and it seems you still cannot deny you carry the energon of a Decepticon."

She stared up at Megatron. He was right in front of her now. What? He knew. "It was my own fault," she finally stammered out. "I was the one that attacked him." Optimus. She couldn't quite get her words to function correctly with those inhumane purple eyes glinting down at her.

"Ah, yes," Megatron mused, placing a servo on his powerful hips and leaning his weight on one leg. "Enamoring video Laserbeak provided. I actually thought you would follow through on his destruction! A pity you've changed—you would have made a wonderful Queen of the Decepticons."

Finally, Cliffjumper's voice piped up. "_Queen?"_

Nightstalker's spark squeezed tight in her chassis. Megatron chuckled, reaching a servo up and lifting Nightstalker's chin up with one of his fingers. "Oh yes," he crooned, optics suggesting much more, "she would have made a wonderful queen."

Cliffjumper was in between them so suddenly Nightstalker didn't have time to blink. His powerful cannons aimed at Megatron, humming in threat, and his optics narrowed to slits. "Get your hands off her," he snarled.

Megatron arched an amused brow at the warrior, and he smirked. He removed his hand. "You get around quickly, don't you, Nightstalker?"

Cliffjumper twitched. "Get around?"

"Not like that," Nightstalker hissed to Megatron, wings straining against her cuffs as the Decepticon leader took a great deal of enjoyment in this.

"Oh, don't you know?" he said lightly to Cliffjumper. He smirked wickedly. "Nightstalker here was more than just my lead torturer, she was also my frag partner."

There it was—out in the open. Her precious secret she would have given anything for the Autobots not to know. Megatron didn't pick up on that though, merely rumbling with pleasant and hot memories of the sticky nights. "Hm, yes, exceedingly talented in that area. You've gained a libidinous partner, Cliffjumper."

The bot in question's jaw slacked open. He turned wide, horrified optics on Nightstalker. "Nights . . . ?"

"It's not like that!" she burst to both mechs, but neither seemed to hear her—either that, or they didn't care.

Ratchet gave a harsh, cynical and sarcastic laugh at Nightstalker. "How many more secrets are you hiding from us?" he snarled. "Did Megatron frag you well?"

"You were his bitch?" Arcee spat flatly. "You let him frag you like some—"

Oddly, out of all it could have been, it was Optimus that spoke up for her. "Now is not the time to be discussing Nightstalker personal history," he growled flatly, daring any of the bots to say otherwise. His crystal blue optics could cut through steel. He pinned them to Megatron. "Ratchet, obtain the destination from our GUEST."

That should have effectively ended all conversation. While Megaton did move away and to the ground bridge controls, Cliffjumper lowered his weapons, turning around with hurt disbelief at Nightstalker. "Nights . . . you wouldn't . . ."

Nightstalker clenched her jaw. She would. And enjoy it too. And still want it, worst of all. She groaned, dropping her face into her servos. There went all the credibility she had worked up. Crushed. Dust under the rug.

She could feel the all the bots optics on her, judging her, reassessing her, and completely disgusted with her in every way. Nightstalker cowered back as far as she could, ashamed.

Worst of all . . . _She still wanted him._

* * *

><p>She sat in the base.<p>

They freaking charged to the core of the Earth, the core of UNICRON, and she sat helpless in the base. That was what Nightstalker did as she endured her punishment. Wings straining against their cuffs. Worry eating away at her spark.

The weather became worse to the point of threatening to collapse the base on top of them before it all suddenly let up. That boded well of the group's success, but coming back short one signal, short one bot, was enough to send Nightstalker's insides into a fit of fear—

She could only be thankful that Optimus wasn't dead.

Orion Pax. She had no idea that Optimus had been, almost literally, someone else before he had been given the title Prime. Granted, she probably should have known that—the title "Prime" was something earned. She had just never met Optimus before the war. Now she HAD heard of Megatronus before the war—in fact, she had watched a few of his gladiator matches with Fli-Ni to see this iconic figure fight because, to them, he had been their idol. Megatronus was going to be the one to rid the world of the caste system, and he would be the one that would get bots like themselves off the streets. They had placed a hope in Megatronus, and Fli-Ni had proclaimed that he was going to be as great as he was.

How ironic the twists of fate could be.

And now, she knew Jack had been given the key to Vector Sigma. It both moved her spark with pride over the boy that had won Optimus's trust, but it also scared her. There was no "oxygen" on Cybertron, but this complication was made harder because it HAD to be Jack that accessed Vector Sigma. Vector Sigma could only be accessed by a Prime, or one chosen by a Prime.

In other words, Jack had nearly become the next Prime himself. Jackson Darbimus Prime—yeah, it had a ring to it. There must be more to Jack than meets the eye.

Instead, the days dragged by slowly in which they searched futilely for Optimus. Ratchet struggled to jerry-rig the ground bridge to space bridge Jack to Cybertron to access Vector Sigma, and Nightstalker rotted inside the base, clawing the walls to be set free in these long days of idleness. Seventeen days before freedom quickly became ten before the bots finally had a plan.

Let the Decepticons build their space bridge, and then commandeer it. It was a simple and risky plan, but one that the Autobots were willing to place bets on. Ten days trickled to three before Ratchet's first tweaking of the ground bridge failed, nearly sending the stressed bot into despair. Starscream contacting them later that night gave them the first information they had regarding the 'Con's space bridge location.

It was then that their plan was hatched fully.

"We will bridge directly into the Decepticon mine," Ratchet told them, "and make our way to the space bridge chamber, neutralizing any Decepticon forces we encounter. Once we secure the space bridge, we'll send for Jack."

There was a pause as he let this sink in, and Nightstalker watched outcast from the sides. Cliffjumper was shifting from foot to foot—he was antsy for action these past 2 weeks without Optimus and wanted to kick some 'Con again. She also had a feeling he was biting his glossia to keep from interrupting the hair-trigger medic.

"Stealth must be an ABSOLUTE priority," Ratchet said severely. "We will most certainly be outnumbered, and if any Decepticon should transmit an alert to their warship, the odds become 400 to one. Scrambling communications upon entry will certainly provide an edge in this regard."

Nightstalker hovered as the war plans were laid out. They began to designate who to where, and she could only think, _Am I to waste here in the back?_ But she had three more days to wait before she was free. The walls taunted her processor, and she hated that she was being left out of Optimus's rescue.

"Taking the bridge is the easy part," Arcee cut in strictly. "You four need to hold it long enough for Jack—and me—to get to Cybertron and back." Dear Primus, and how long would it take for them to find Vector Sigma? No one knew where it was located, it was honestly just superstition! If they landed on one side of the planet and it was on the other side, it could take them DAYS to get to where they needed!

Ratchet nodded. "If Rafael climbed to the top of the rope in gym class, we can do this."

Nightstalker arched a brow at the sudden off-colored statement but Raf and Ratchet exchanged a meaningful glance, so she could only attribute it to something between them. Miko cut in with an exasperated, "What does GYM class have to do with anything? And if Ratchet gets to go on a commando raid, I'M going too."

Ratchet leveled a serious look on her. "Miko. You will help Rafael operate our ground bridge and manage the communications."

She snarled in frustration and stomped away. "Can't go to Cybertron, can't storm the Decepticon space bridge . . ."

"And Nurse Darby will stand by in case of emergency."

For Jack's part. Everyone had a place, everyone had something to do, something to contribute to Optimus's rescue.

And what did Nightstalker get to do? Sit in her room and claw the walls.

That was NOT what she wanted to do.

"I'm going too."

Every optic in the area turned on her, Ratchet's most cutting of all. "You will do no such thing," he growled, standing arms and legs akimbo as he faced her. "You are still confined to this base, and one step out and I will GLADLY enforce two more weeks of your punishment."

Nightstalker took a deep breath to steel her nerves. She had sat helpless and pitying herself long enough in this Primus-forsaken base. She had to be stronger than she had before, she had to be strong enough to stand up for herself—strong enough to be the femme that Bumblebee and Optimus believed in.

_Just because you can't change the past doesn't mean that you have to keep wallowing in it._

The wisest words she had ever heard Bumblebee say.

_Don't ever degrade yourself so far that you don't believe you deserve forgiveness._

The most spark-moving words she had ever heard Optimus say.

And she was going to prove them right and finally prove what she needed to prove so long ago wasting time doing Ratchet's dirty work—that, like Jack, she too could be more than meets the eye.

"Then give me the extra two weeks," she stated bravely, hiking up her chin defiantly towards Ratchet. "I'll take them—for Optimus. And nothing you can say or do will change my mind."

"Are you kidding me?" Arcee scoffed scathingly. Her ice cold optics narrowed. "I'd only trust you as far as Raf could throw you, Decepticon."

Nightstalker glared back at the femme. That remark hurt because she knew Raf couldn't throw her anywhere. "This is my one chance to prove myself," Nightstalker persisted stubbornly, wings instinctively flexing in their confines. "I want Optimus back as much as you do, and I'm not going to gain anyone's trust by sitting around the base doing nothing. I AM an AUTOBOT and I will regain my place around here no matter the consequences."

"Oh, and you most CERTAINLY proved you were an Autobot by mutilating Optimus!" Ratchet scoffed scornfully.

"Enough, all of you!"

Cliffjumper's voice thundered through their bickering, and he jerked a thumb Nightstalker's way. "She's right. She can't prove anything by sitting here cooped up in the base. So fine, let her come. At this point she either hits or misses. If she ends up being a traitor, fine, it's better to have it out in the open now before she causes damage down the road—and at this point, we can still easily take her out since she's not had half the training she needs yet."

Nightstalker's brows puckered as she tried to figure out whether or not his words were a compliment to let her try or an insult that she wasn't good enough to do them real damage in the long run.

He shrugged, and his unreadable optics looked back at her as he said, "But we've gotta at least give her the chance to prove herself. So we'll take her, and judge her by her actions. Got it?"

No one could put up a fight to that. And so, Nightstalker found the stasis cuffs removed from her wings—and she had to violently suppress the urge to go running from the base for a fly until she nearly shut down her own processor—and she found herself grouped with Ratchet, Arcee, Bulkhead, and Cliffjumper.

Cliffjumper nodded at her as they went through the ground bridge, and she gave a grateful smile to him. He was giving her the chance.

_I'll make you proud._


	29. Something to Prove

**Author's Note:**

**Thank you all my lovely watchers for being patient with me. Took two weeks off writing to catch up on schoolwork and college applications, and I'm STILL not done, but my brain was overwhelmed so I need a break and so relaxed myself with some writing. YAYZ! Extra long chapter!**

* * *

><p>"Clear."<p>

Nightstalker jumped, Bulkhead's voice just a bit TOO loud for her sense of security for sneaking, but it didn't seem to bother the others.

"Clear," Arcee echoed, and Nightstalker dashed with them through the dark mines, infrared night vision leading the way.

Trailing close to Bumblebee, Nightstalker dashed along with them, for the most part watching the bots silence the Decepticons so quickly that Nightstalker didn't have a chance to do anything. In all honesty, Nightstalker had never done this kind of reconnaissance before—creeping and seizing and defending. Her only time out in the field was when she had been stupid enough to attack Optimus, and she really hadn't done anything useful. Nightstalker clenched her little machine gun tighter and followed the Autobots' lead, keeping as quiet as possible until they entered the main antechamber. Ducking behind a rock like the rest of the bots did, she heard Ratchet breathe, "By the All Spark . . ."

Nightstalker craned her head over, and she caught sight of all the Vehicons mulling about, so much security patrolling the area and the massive space bridge literally embedded into the wall of the underground cave. Her spark flipped in its chamber.

_Here we go._

The bots were unspoken on what needed doing to seize the space bridge in the most efficient way, but Bumblebee—sensing how lost Nightstalker was—sent to her over her private link a message indicating the farthest Vehicon from them and the signal to advance.

Nightstalker nodded, spark pounding wildly in her chest. Putting her gun away, Nightstalker crouched as Bulkhead hefted up the drilling machine. She bounced on her toes.

_This is it. This is it, this is it, you can handle this—go!_

The instant the driller left Bulkhead's servos, Nightstalker leapt up and transformed, shooting across the room. She had reached the opposite side by the time the driller had crushed two Vehicons, and Nightstalker transformed back and landed on the Vehicon Bumblebee had designated to her. She shrieked momentarily when the Vehicon swung wildly at his assailant, and she tried to bring her blade down low enough to slit his throat, but she had to use all her strength to even stay on him. Gritting her dentures, Nightstalker struggled against him for a long moment before the Vehicon staggered all the way into the wall, squishing her wings and knocking her off.

Nightstalker squawked when the Vehicon leveled his gun at her, and she leapt to her feet, dodging quite effectively out of the way. Not thinking to switch weapons for the situation, Nightstalker rushed up and swung, but the Vehicon easily caught her attack and glared down at her.

_Dear Primus those faceless masks are really freaky!_

Before Nightstalker could fail anymore or the Vehicon could proceed, a blast caught him from the back. Nightstalker squealed again, ducking out of the way only to see that all the others were finished without a word and Cliffjumper's cannon smoking. The owner of that gun was chuckling.

"Nice try, but maybe next time."

Nightstalker blushed furiously and took his hand as he helped her up to the platform. In all honesty, she couldn't believe that this had worked! She swiftly reminded herself that it was HOLDING the perimeter that was going to be the difficult part, but it was still thrilling when Ratchet turned off the scrambler and ground bridged Jack in. And then, when he turned on the space bridge! Oh, Nightstalker had never seen a more glorious sight in her life! The power absolutely thrummed beneath her peds, roared in her audio receptors, and blinded her optics with crackling energies come to life. It reminded her of the stories of the Golden Age of Cybertron where it was said space bridges were in wide use. It gave her a hope for the future that maybe they could somehow bring Cybertron back to its former glory . . .

After a moment or two from the point Arcee and Jack bridged out, Bulkhead was the first to speak.

"This could be awhile."

Nightstalker was about to comment on that when immediately after, Breakdown's voice nearly made her jump out of her protoform.

"Space bridge control, do you read me?" Every helm snapped towards the computer. "Space bridge control, this is Breakdown. Your status report is overdue."

Every bot froze. Nightstalker shimmied closer to Bumblebee as Bulkhead muttered, "Scrap." He cleared his throat, intending to play Breakdown off, but Ratchet put a hand on his chassis.

"No! He'll recognize your voice!"

Bulkhead's brow pinched in irritation. "I can make it lower." When Ratchet failed to look impressed, he added questioningly, "Higher?"

Ratchet looked back to the computer warily. "He would recognize mine as well."

"Mine?" Cliffjumper supplied helpfully.

Nightstalker swatted him. "A human who had never met you would know your voice," she muttered just in time for Breakdown to come back with, "Come in, space bridge control!" They all looked back to Bumblebee, but the bot just gave a helpless shrug.

A thought slashed across Nightstalker's mind. What HAD Bumblebee sounded like before he lost his voice box?

Bumblebee gestured to Nightstalker, and her optics popped before she waved her hands. "No way! He knows my voice, and I'm a branded traitor."

"Don't make me come down there and dent some engine blocks."

"Somebody say something!" Fowler demanded impatiently. "Pronto!"

Ratchet's hand jumped to the controls. "Rafael, patch in Agent Fowler!"

There was a sputter. "What am I supposed to say?"

Nightstalker jumped to the computer and pressed the button, despite how Ratchet tried to wave her off. "I know him," Nightstalker said to Fowler quickly. "Just say something that sounds remotely smart, he won't know what you're talking about and buy it."

"You have ONE-NANOCYCLE to respond, or—"

"This is space bridge control," Agent Fowler started in hesitantly, and Nightstalker felt herself praying silently. "Situation normal."

The bots froze as Breakdown finally barked, "Normal? You sure about that."

"We were just—" a guilty breath punctuated his words, "calibrating the sub-systems and we, uh, had a surge. But it's fine now." A pause. "How are you?"

Nightstalker groaned quietly, pressing a servo to her forehead as she heard Cliffjumper trying not to bust out laughing behind her.

Clearly, the question took him off guard, because he stuttered a moment, "Eh, um . . . Never better! I know it's thankless down there. Keep up the good work, huh?"  
>"Will do. Control out."<p>

Nightstalker felt part of her spark melt as everyone let out a tense breath. Breakdown really was a bit dim and rough around the edges, but he was a nice mech, and she would always vouch for him—no matter IF he was fun to pick on.

Cliffjumper was the first to bust out laughing. "I can't believe he actually bought it!" he crowed, slapping Bumblebee's shoulder.

Bulkhead gave a hearty laugh as well, grinning. "I knew that ol' lug nut was dumb, but this?" He chuckled harder, shaking his head.

Nightstalker rolled her eyes. "Oh, come ON, Bulkhead. Breakdown's always been nicer to the Vehicons than anyone should know. Turns out the rumors are true."

Bulkhead chortled. "I can't believe he's such a softie!"

Nightstalker poked her glossia out at him. "Oh, and you're not?"

A flush touched Bulkhead's cheeks at this, but Cliffjumper interrupted them all by flopping on the ground, lying on his back, and kicking a ped up on his knee. "All right," he said, and he grinned up at Nightstalker. "We're bound to be here a while, so tell us some more about Fli-Ni, Nights! I've been meaning to wheedle some more stories out of you!"

Ratchet whirled at him, sticking his hands on his hips. "Ah-ah-ah—are you crazy? Get up! We're supposed to be holding the perimeter, on alert for any Decepticon activity!"

Cliffjumper snorted and cast a servo out to a nearby dead Vehicon. "Right. I doubt that guy's getting up anytime soon. Ease up, Doc!" He leaned up and sat criss cross, arching a brow at Ratchet. "See? Better? I'm sitting up."

Ratchet growled shortly. "My name is not Doc! And if we're going to waste time telling stories, then you will do it STANDING up and watching for the enemy!"

Nightstalker put out a hand to help Cliffjumper to his feet, and as she did so, she said, "Ease up, Cliff. Ratchet's been under a lot of stress lately. I think we all have."

Cliffjumper's lips tipped up, and he chucked Nightstalker's chin gently. "You got it," he rumbled, and Nightstalker felt her spark melt again. Inwardly, she thanked the good Primus above that neither Cliffjumper nor Bulkhead carried their grudges anymore. In fact, the shock of her frag-buddying-up with Megatron seemed to have lessened some with all of the bots, though Arcee and Ratchet were still a little wary and hostile. It was for good reason. Nightstalker didn't blame them—that meant she had been extremely close to Megatron, and they were right to worry. She just hoped she could somehow prove something to them today to make them believe in her again. After all, the only thing she had proved so far was that she couldn't take down a Vehicon by herself.

*But, could you?* Bumblebee asked her. He gave an embarrassed coo and scratched the back of his helm. *I mean, could you tell us more about Fli-Ni?*

Nightstalker rocked back on her heels, contemplating what to say. "Sure," she told him as she paused to collect her thoughts. Against her will, her thoughts immediately turned to the unknown seeker that had planted the bomb and that ridiculous screeching voice that didn't match the voice print of any bot she had heard in her life. The bloodlust rose again, but she pushed it aside with a cold douse of logic—the mech could have died in the Kaon battle, or anytime over the space of the war. She might never avenge Fli-Ni. Then, she thought about Optimus. He knew. Well, he used to—as Orion, he didn't remember anything. Would he remember his time as Orion when he became Optimus again? But, technically, he was still the same bot . . .

"Well, for one," Nightstalker started, and a small smile instantly began to play around her lips, "when Fli-Ni sat on the ground, he sat crisscross, and he always bounced his knees when he did. In fact, he was almost moving at all times. If he was standing in place, he'd shuffle his feet. Or he'd tap his toes behind him. Or his wings would flutter. He did that a lot."

A laugh tinkled from Bumblebee. *You do that a lot* he told her.

Unconsciously, she began to do it. She blushed a little. "Yeah, I think we get it from Mom." At the thought, Nightstalker opened and closed her wings in thought. "Nightstalker was bigger than me. Well, not that much taller, but he was . . . bulkier. He had cool armor. It was really elegant, and I always wished I had armor like his. We think he got it from his dad since I look more like Mom did." Nightstalker tapped her fingers against the exposed protoform of her thighs. She laughed suddenly. "He was a glitch-case. Did you know one time when we flying above Kaon that he tried to do a trick and face planted into the ground?" Her ruminations were interrupted by Cliffjumper snorting a laugh, and Nightstalker grinned. "I know! I was freaking out when I landed next to him, but he got up just fine and you know what he says to me? 'Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.' I just about slapped him!"

Cliffjumper laughed heartily with Bumblebee and Bulkhead, and he winked. "Hey, sounds legit to me!"

Bumblebee laughed too. *I bet you were always worried about him!*

"You bet I was," Nightstalker agreed with a helpless shake of her head. "He ALWAYS said that. And he was so radical. His personality was so OUT THERE and just . . . powerful, and in your face. Dynamic. He says he got it from our mother, and I think he also got how much he talked from Mom, too."

Bumblebee's optics dilated happily. *I bet he and Cliffjumper would have gotten along*

Nightstalker grinned. "Please, he could get along with the Decepticon trying to kill him. He was so happy and fun I bet it would be hard for even RATCHET not to like him!"

That brought another round of laughter and a mildly disdained grunt from the medic who was unimpressed at their playful banter at such a stressful time.

Nightstalker stretched her wings yearning for flight and blotted out the need with thoughts of Fli-Ni. She peered at Cliffjumper and Bumblebee. "He was a combination of you two," she told them as she thought of Fli-Ni's dynamic personality. "Super cute and crazy as all get up—"

Cliffjumper interrupted by giving Bumblebee a flabbergasted look. "Bee, I can't believe she's calling you crazy!"

Bulkhead chuckled. "Please, Cliff, we ALL know who the crazy one is." This brought another round of laughter through everyone.

Nightstalker smiled. "Yeah, crazy as you, cute as Bumblebee, as eager as they get, but not QUITE as irritating as a certain red bot I know." She grinned at Cliffjumper's indignation, but before anything more could be said, a patch from Jack interrupted their raillery.

"We're being attacked by some giant . . . bot beetle!"

Everyone whipped to the computer. "An Insecticon!" Ratchet snarled.

Raf's bewildered voice echoed through the open line. "What are Decepticons doing on Cybertron?"

"A few remain," Ratchet told him tensely, "in stasis. Sentries, should the enemy return."

For a few tense moments, nothing was said until Arcee's tense voice snapped, "Go!"

Nightstalker's spark flopped. "Seriously?" Jack sputtered.

"Without Arcee?" Nurse Darby jumped in, concerned for her boy. "She's his guide!"

"No, Nurse Darby, Arcee is his BACKUP," Ratchet stressed. "The key card is his guide."

"Do it!" Arcee shouted.

Nightstalker found herself impressed by Nurse Darby's resilience when the mom said, "Listen to her, Jack. You've made it this far. Optimus is counting on you."

There was a hard beat of silence before Jack finally uttered, "Rodger that, Mom."

An echo of Nightstalker's thoughts assaulted her at the hardened steel in Jack's voice. _Jackson Darbimus Prime._ Becoming more and more realistic by the day, the hour, the minute . . .

Then, Nightstalker's spark twisted. An Insecticon. Nightstalker had seen some in early days as a Decepticon, and she was smaller than one of their legs. She knew Arcee was a formidable warrior, but even this seemed a stretch . . . she could only hope the femme managed.

Still, everyone waited tensely for the next minutes. Nightstalker felt her wings begin to flutter nervously, but finally, they heard Jack's voice say,

"Hey, everyone. I'm in."

Miko crowed in triumph, as did Cliffjumper with a loud whoop and punching the shoulders closest to him. Nightstalker grinned as she let out a worried breath, and she rubbed her sore shoulder as they waited for another minute. When they did, they heard Jack's breathless voice stammer, "This is . . . wow," and that was all the overwhelmed human could say to what wonders he was seeing.

Nightstalker briefly wondered about what Vector Sigma would look like, but for all her thoughts she couldn't think of something tangible. "Commencing download," Jack told them. "I think." Nightstalker felt her spark soar.

This was working!

Still, while Cliffjumper's voice filled her audio receptors for the next while, Nightstalker was barely aware of his pointless jabbering as he prattled on about getting Optimus back, and kicking Decepticon tailpipe, and Primus knew what else. All she could think of was how proud she was of Jack for being so brave, and she found a fond smile tipping up her faceplates. She could only imagine how June felt. Next thing she knew, Jack was speaking again.

"This is taking a while."

"Of course it is," Ratchet said to him. "We are talking about the collective wisdom of the Primes."

Nightstalker nearly jumped out of her protoform when Jack yelped in shock. Pushing her way past Cliffjumper—who was in her way again—Nightstalker felt her spark clench at several grunts and shouts from the youth.

"What is it, Jack?" Ratchet asked him, tense back the only thing that alerted them to his stress.

"Scraplets!"

A groan rumbled through Bulkhead's chassis. "Why did it have to be scraplets!"

Ratchet's optics dilated. "If they chew through Vector Sigma before the Matrix fully reloads—"

Interrupting Ratchet's dark premonition was the sound of a ground bridge and the chilling words, "So, Vector Sigma IS more than legend!"

Nightstalker gasped audibly and whirled to see Megatron prowl through his ground bridge. She shrank behind Cliffjumper with wide optics as each of the Autobots took offensive stances, narrowing optics at the unfazed Decepticon leader.

_He'll take us on five to one? Four, minus me, I doubt I'll be that much help._ She took in a sharp in cycle. _Of course he will. He won't let anyone or anything stand in his way._

"You Autobots have gone to impressive lengths to recover your leader." He barely spared her a glance, and Nightstalker felt her gut twist. This was a battlefield. He wouldn't show mercy to even her. "Be assured, I shall never underestimate you again."

Nightstalker felt herself shiver at the cold growl in his voice—he was furious. And that anger was going to give him strength in battle. She knew determination was going to be on the Autobot side, but when it came to Megatron's blind fury, he was nearly unstoppable.

"Now, I assume the one called Arcee will be stepping through that portal with the reloaded Matrix of Leadership in hand."

His sinister gaze grazed over the open space bridge, and Nightstalker automatically followed the bots as they took offensive positions in front of the portal. Nightstalker's rapidly percolating mind tried to think positively—Megatron didn't know Jack was with Arcee. He had to be thinking that Arcee had the Matrix and not Jack.

"We hold the space bridge at all costs!"

The Autobots moved out, attacking, but Nightstalker stood rooted to the spot. Oh Primus—she tried to get her body to function, but she couldn't formulate a thought when Megatron snarled at them, taking a few bullets that pinged off before intercepting the first one to him, Bulkhead. Against all odds, Bulkhead was picked up and tossed like a rag doll. Nightstalker shrieked, dodging the hulking green body that flew past her and towards the space bridge.

She suddenly snapped into motion. Megatron easily grabbed Ratchet by the face, and the red and white bot was flung across the room. Bumblebee skirted around the outside, but Megatron bore down on him too and threw him in the same manner. Cliffjumper and Nightstalker converged on him at about the same time, Cliffjumper throwing a furious punch to Megatron's gut, but Megatron did the same, sending the courageous bot soaring into the far wall. Nightstalker shouted as loud as she could to bolster her reckless attack, and she jumped, intending to sink her blade into Megatron.

Quick as lightning, Megatron's servo snapped out and grabbed her in the air.

Nightstalker gasped, and his hand crunched around her tiny waist so tightly that she almost couldn't take an in cycle. In her shock, Nightstalker dropped her weapon, and the instant she did, she figuratively heard Cliffjumper berating her in her mind. Megatron's red optics glared at her, and she squeaked before slamming her claws into his arm. The Decepticon leader didn't flinch when her fingers penetrated through his armor, but he did hiss when she began to pour hot lava into the wiring in his arms. He snarled, and his servo clenched tighter around her—Nightstalker cried out, pulling against his vice-like grip that began to crush her waist. Even though she was certain he could squeeze her in half and grind her to pulp beneath his heel, Nightstalker glared back at him as best as she could, digging her claws deeper and deeper into his leading arm. She felt her claws snagging on the wiring. If she could just disable his leading arm—!

However, a body slammed into Megatron's arm, making her pop from his grip. Nightstalker plopped on her aft and cried out when Megatron slammed Ratchet to the ground, slinging him off as he tumbled over the medic and back to his feet. With a mighty swing of his arm, Megatron threw Ratchet into the oncoming Bumblebee, and Bulkhead ran up.

"You're going down, Bucket Head!"

Nightstalker staggered up to her feet, snatching up her blade again as Bulkhead and Megatron scrapped, but as she saw Bulkhead easily thrown aside yet again and Megatron's superior blade, she knew there was no chance she could do anything with her little trinket. Ratchet tried again, but Megatron knocked aside his blades like child play before backhanding the medical bot so hard it temporarily knocked him out cold.

Nightstalker swallowed, inwardly shaking with terror, but outwardly let her electrical whips unravel from her arms. As Bumblebee and Cliffjumper double teamed Megatron to temporarily distract him from killing Ratchet, Nightstalker caught her breath and ran up, ignoring how her mind screamed at her not to do this. Instead, as Bumblebee was thrown over her head and Cliffjumper knocked aside, she jumped with a yell and lashed out her whips.

The high voltage made Megatron arch and roar in pain, and Nightstalker backed out of range of his sword before whipping the electricity across his leading shoulder. He snarled, and before the next lash could make purchase, Megatron's servo whipped out and grabbed the tips of her whips, ignoring the way it electrocuted him. Nightstalker's optics popped wide, and her terrified gaze met Cliffjumper's alarmed one as they both realized the same thing.

_You never taught me how to get free._

Nightstalker felt her peds leave the floor, the world capsize and whirl, and then, pain erupted along every inch of her body. Nightstalker cried out when she was slung through the air again and the unforgiving ground smashed into her. Megatron whipped her around, and she felt herself slam into someone, metal on metal crashing, and she heard Bumblebee's squeal. The world ricocheted once more before there was a flash of red, a crash, and black.

* * *

><p>"Come, Arcee. So that I might end the lineage of the Primes for all time."<p>

Orion wasn't sure why he was doing this, only that somewhere inside him, he knew it was right. Perhaps that was what lent him the strength of bravado that became reality as he mustered up his best growl.

"I cannot allow that to happen, Megatron."

Megatron whirled, startled that he was there, but the discovery that he had been armed kept him from being a helpless prisoner. No doubt, Orion had POWERFUL weapons, so it helped even if his aim was shaky.

"And why should you care, Orion Pax?" Megatron spat at him, and the venom in his voice made Orion's spark clench. "You are no Prime!" This was not his friend from so long ago. Somehow, the years had corrupted his friend, and it pained his spark in its core. Perhaps he should have realized this when Megatronus had shortened his name, taken on a different persona than he knew . . .

Instead, Orion turned his optics downward as he formulated his response. "That may be true . . . or yet another deception." How blind could he have been to the truth! It proclaimed itself from the very entity of their name, and he had swallowed that lie as well! "But this I do know. My sympathies lie with the Autobots. And you," he drew the swords he had discovered, one sadly broken, "are not one of us."

He knew this fact with every vibe of his being. Nothing the Decepticons had shown or done was righteous, and he couldn't stand for it, no matter what little he could. His optics darted to five decimated Autobots at the side; one he noticed immediately was dark and beautiful, a tiny femme, and he wondered at her. How did one so small think she could take on Megatron? The yellow mech with the cracked door wings looked barely out of his youngling years! How could they allow someone as young as himself into battle? One mech was terribly overweight, and the other smaller than the average soldier, outmatched by sheer size. Ratchet was face flat among them.

Even so, he found his central processor bewildered at this mismatched band that he was supposed to be the leader of. He did not know any of them save for Ratchet, and yet they risked life and limb for him? Orion thought back to when he first awoke in that strange cavern. The green one—he had called him Optimus then with familiarity. The blue femme—she had been furious that something had happened to him; what had happened? Where was she now? And when he had looked at the yellow bot . . . something had moved his spark then, and he had ignored it, ignored those big pleading optics that had been so distraught. His mismatched place on the _NEMESIS _and the Decepticons so hateful and walking on eggshells around him. Again, he had been blind to the truth. They were AFRAID of him. He, a mere librarian! Of course he should have determined that he was more than that!

Orion cast his optics back to Ratchet. No, Ratchet had been a medic even before the war. He could not have led the Autobot resistance. No, the Autobots had to have had the greatest of warriors to lead them, someone of righteous spark and flawless thinking.

_And that great mech was me?_

He could not believe it, but all he had heard pointed to that. He could only think that perhaps he was more than simply meets the eye, something even he could not see yet. Blinding holding on to this faith, Orion gave a yell to bolster his courage and rushed Megatron.

However, as he secretly expected, Megatron easily blocked his attack, and then, jabbed his knuckles into his gut. Orion gasped, gagging a little as bile rose in his throat at the powerful blow to his stomach. He sank over Megatron until the war leader dumped him on the ground.

"You're spark may be in the right place, Orion," and he felt a cruel blow slam against his back, sending him from his knees to flat on the floor, "but you have much to learn before you can hope to ever again stand your ground against me!"

Orion trembled in shock and pain, and his transformed his hands and pressed his palms to the ground. It was a foolish move to stand against Megatron, crowning gladiator of all gladiators, but he couldn't help himself. It felt so RIGHT, burning up his circuits, and he knew he couldn't let Megatron get away with his villainy.

"A moment, sadly, that will never come."

Orion craned his head back up to look Megatron in the optics, searching for the last remnants of his friend Megatronus from so long ago, but all he could see was the blind fury, the sickening triumph of Megatron. Inwardly, Orion quaked in fear at the point of the blade in his face, but outwardly he didn't falter, setting his jaw and glaring defiantly into the face of death.

_If I must perish here, so be it. I know I am right, and I will not allow him the pleasure of seeing me fall in fear of him._

A rev of an engine roared over the sound of the open space bridge. Orion's optics popped as he caught sight of a femme a mere instant before she slammed into Megatron so forcefully that her tiny size took him halfway across the room with a guttural roar, her face the picture of sheer determination and rage.

Orion's spark skipped. She was the other femme he led? The passion that lent her strength was real—she fought for him like she would fight for a loved one. Family. His optics darted to the others unconscious on the floor, and his spark surged.

Somehow, he had protected them all this time. He didn't know how, or why he of all bots was made a Prime, and he couldn't begin to fathom how to handle an important position such as that, but—

He heard it. Soft, tiny steps unlike any he had ever heard before. Turning, Orion's optics met a tiny being in a strange shell, but his eyes were reverent and determined—he knew Orion too, somehow, someway. When he held up the Key to Vector, Orion didn't wonder how such a small life form had come to hold such an ancient artifact or why he was choosing him to yet again become Prime; all questions left Orion's processor except one.

"Are you . . . certain I am worthy?"

Orion quaked on the inside. He? A Prime? Was this a burden he was willing to take? But blaster fire and snarls and cries of battle raged on behind him. Such a tiny femme compared to Megatron . . . He couldn't fathom her defeating the great gladiator when even three ultimate gladiators at a time couldn't take him down.

One thing he could take comfort in was the tiny life form's words, when he said, "You have no idea."

There was no hesitation, no doubt in his voice. He was so certain he didn't even flinch in the face of the danger just behind him. Trembling in awe at what was happening, the transition began to happen almost without Orion's say. His chest plates opened, and he felt the beam of power, of wisdom, of leadership pour into him.

New information assaulted him. He froze as the wisdom of the Primes began to take up his memory banks like an assaulting tidal wave, something he could no longer escape from. He found himself riveted in reverence as he was brought back to his early years as a Prime, walking through his life, filling in the gaps. He amazed himself and cursed himself, exulted in victory and grieved in defeat, grew delighted over new soldiers—new friends—and then harshly spark-broken when they were lost as quick as he gained them. He pained in nostalgia for Cybertron and bemoaned their loss of it, and he missed friends he had not seen for years—Jazz, Ironhide, Prowl, the whole lot of them.

Yet, through it all, his belief that Megatron's ways were wrong were reinforced. He witnessed the mech's atrocities and exactly how corrupted he had become. He mourned the loss of his friend, but grew new determination to save his home planet and those still living. The exodus to Earth—the abundance of energon that finally gave him hope for their dying planet. The joy of meeting their three human allies, and then—wait . . . the black femme . . .

No . . . No! Orion bucked wildly, suddenly realizing what was happening.

_I will not lose myself in this! No! I don't want this!_

The great Prime he was become shushed him and tried to placate him, but Orion fought, trying to push away the beam of Vector Sigma without any luck.

_This is not what I want! Please, don't! Give it to someone else!_

But the Prime inside him knew this was the only way it could happen. The deed was already done—he could not undo the past. He had to accept this. Without this, Megatron's tyranny had already won.

Orion cried out on the inside, already feeling his fingertips tingle with the urge to touch her. Again Orion and Prime met in a harsh battle of wills as the Prime berated Orion for something so base while Orion yearned for something more.

_This cannot be my destiny. Pointless, perpetual conflict . . . Why? Why me? Why can't I have something more, someone to share myself with? Why must I forego all attachments?_

Immediately, the Prime let him feel the agony of sorrows from comrades lost before, and while Orion grieved, he still lamented his loss of character, of freedom, being forced into a leadership role he wasn't sure he was ready to handle.

_True leaders are born from brokenness . . ._

The Vector Sigma key finished reloading.

_Why . . . Why?_

His fingers took the key, optics hardening in determination as he realized the full weight of his duty.

_Why . . ._

The Prime had won.

He shifted around, immediately catching the death blow Megatron had in store for him. Optimus glared up at the Decepticon leader.

"Megatron . . ."

His battle mask clamped into place.

Megatron recoiled in horror.

His servo fisted.

"BEGONE!"

As Optimus began to beat into Megatron for the thousandth of thousand times, Optimus quickly took in his surroundings. What? A space bridge? Decepticons? They were supposed to be in the core of the Earth! Giving Megatron a swift uppercut that sent the mech flying and crashing to the ground, momentarily glitching, he was even MORE surprised to see all his wounded bots gathering behind him, guns leveled, optics determined, unwavering. Only Nightstalker remained unconscious, carried by Cliffjumper.

"Ratchet," Optimus asked, astounded to see even his medic out in the field, "how did we arrive here?"

The medic's mouth plates tipped up into a relieved smile. "Long story, old friend."

As Megatron began to climb up onto the platform again, growling so darkly the sound nearly seeped into the air, a ground bridge blasted open next to them. "It's ours!" Arcee proclaimed, the sound of triumph sinking into her voice.

Optimus still wasn't sure of everything going on, but he knew they couldn't stay here—his soldiers were wounded, and so was he. His gut was smarting something awful. Besides that, he somehow got the impression that all of this had been for him. He did the only thing he could.

"Autobots," he ordered, "fall back!"

Megatron began to run directly towards them as Arcee snatched up Jack and into the ground bridge. Cliffjumper followed with the unconscious Nightstalker and Ratchet on his tail.

"This time," Bulkhead taunted the Decepticon leader, "he's coming with us!"

As Bumblebee and Bulkhead dashed through the bridge, Optimus's mind reeled.

_This time? I went with Decepticons?_

He couldn't fathom it. Instead, Optimus took his bots' lead and followed them into the ground bridge, optics pinned to a furious, horribly irate—and possibly hurt—Megatron's optics as he gave a few last defensive shots as the bridge closed behind him.

_What has happened?_

* * *

><p>It was the beeping she heard first.<p>

Nightstalker stirred from a groggy sleep, registering this steady beeping that drew her from stasis. It was unusual for an alarm, and she couldn't understand why there wasn't a ruckus. As her systems recalibrated and updated, it suddenly occurred to Nightstalker exactly what it was—

A spark beat.

Then, as she groaned in uncomfortable pain, like a dull ache that was going to plague her for the next few days, Nightstalker realized belatedly it was HER spark beat. She shifted, about to get up when a hand pressed against her.

"Easy," she heard Ratchet say. "I'm not letting you out of my sights yet."

She opened her optics, blinking several times as her optics recalibrated the fuzzy picture clearer. She squinted a little. "Ratchet?"

He snorted. "Good to see your processor still functions." As he said so, he scanned her.

Her spark kicked into overdrive. "Wait—and Optimus?"

Ratchet's optics finally softened with immeasurable relief and peace. "Where he belongs," the medic murmured.

With that, the medic took careful inspection of her, and Nightstalker then realized what he was going to be working on—she could see the imprint of Megatron's hand crushed into her waist and that was what was paining her.

"Any wires cinching?" Ratchet asked.

Nightstalker shook her head. "No. My in cycles are a bit weird though." In cycles were not necessary, but it helped regulate the flow of energon and keep their bodies from overheating.

Ratchet gave a thoughtful hum, and he turned from her momentarily to reach for his tools. "And . . . your processor?"

Nightstalker blinked in surprise. "My central processor?"

Ratchet gave a hum, and with shock, Nightstalker looked at his computer screens to see him comparing two different scans of her to each other. Both seemed identical from where she was laying . . . "Yes," Ratchet said. "Your central processor. Is there anything . . . bothering you? Are there any other medical records of yours I need to know?"

"I-I—What?" Blindsided by Ratchet suddenly digging for information, Nightstalker stammered, "No. Why? What's the matter? Is something wrong with me?"

Ratchet's hands stilled on the computer. He dropped his servos. "Not that I know of." He paused. Suddenly turning around, Ratchet faced her and asked bluntly, "Nightstalker, did Megatron ever hurt you while interfacing?"

Her optics popped. She popped into a sitting position, and a searing blush covered her cheeks. "N-No! Of course not!"

"Then has he ever raped you?"

Shock spilled through her. "Wh—What? N-No, no he hasn't."

Ratchet gave a perturbed rumble before pinching his brow. He looked back up at her. "Let me rephrase that. Has he ever taken you against your will?"

Nightstalker blinked up at Ratchet. "I—I—No, I-I don't think so—"

"Nightstalker, did you ever not want to interface with him and he forced you to?" Ratchet's blue optics were serious, and it took Nightstalker a minute or two to realize that he was checking on her wellbeing further than he needed to—he cared. "Say, when you were younger. When you first started to interface with him. Was it of your free will?"

Nightstalker paused, dropping her helm in thought as she thought of her first interface with Megatron. She had been so nervous that he wanted to interface with her that it could have been considered fear. Was it her free will? A sudden epiphany overcame Nightstalker as she thought about that first night.

No. No, it wasn't of her free will. She had merely gone because he was leader of the Decepticons and she knew she COULDN'T say no to him. Primus, she had even asked if it was rape! And what had he said?

_Not if you are willing._

Primus, what a deceptive twist of his words. Finally she muttered to Ratchet, "W-Well . . . I suppose not . . ."

"Then it was rape, Nightstalker."

She looked up at Ratchet. "Ratchet, no, don't talk like that, I—"

"If you did not enter the act willingly, Nightstalker," Ratchet interrupted, "then it was rape."

"But I did go to him willingly!" she burst, incredulous at the thought that the night had been nothing but rape. It hadn't felt like it!

Ratchet frowned and squatted across from her. "Nightstalker . . . Then tell me this: WHY did you go to him?"

"I—What?" Blinking, Nightstalker backtracked over the night again. Shame suddenly filled her, and she turned her helm down, stammering, "I—I . . . Because he was leader of the Decepticons. I . . . couldn't say no . . ."

Ratchet nodded gently. "Rape is rape," he said quietly. "Whether he forcefully committed this act by brutality or by rank."

Nightstalker took a sharp in cycle, shaking her head. She had even drunk the high grade he gave her, and it had scattered her thoughts to the wind. She gave a weak laugh, admitting, "And I just went along with it. I didn't think for once that I shouldn't be doing it."

Ratchet reached up a hand, wiping her tears with his fingers. "Easy, Nightstalker," he murmured. "I just thought you should know."

She gave one sarcastic, pained laugh. "Why, so I know how stupid I was?"

"No, so you know when you are being taken advantage of and that you can stop it."

Fanning her wings slowly, Nightstalker grabbed Ratchet's hand and held it close to her chest, a few last tears trickling down. "Thanks, Ratchet," she said to him.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, and after a moment, finally was able to mutter, "Well . . . I-I'm just doing my job."

With a little laugh, Nightstalker jumped up and threw her arms around his waist, causing the CMO to jump sky high before freezing. "Right," she said with a watery tease. "You're a medic, not a psychologist."

Nightstalker buried her face into his chassis, whispering, "Thanks, Ratchet. We're square?"

After a moment, she felt his hand rest against the back of her helm.

"Yes. Square."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Hey, if you haven't yet realize I have/or read Nightstalker and Megatron's first interface, it's on my profile, called "Gone"**

**WARNING! That piece is very heavy smut graphic, so if you don't like, don't read! ;) Thanks for all the lovely reviews, I've got 91 on here now, maybe it'll hit 100 with this chapter! ^^**


	30. Brothers

After much arguing with Optimus, it was finally decided that Nightstalker did not have to serve the extra two weeks.

Actually, it was only Nightstalker arguing against him. She argued that he had said she could never leave base while he quite calmly pointed out that he said she couldn't leave the base to FLY, and during the excursion she joined to help save him from the Decepticons, she had not flown. He also commended her for her bravery, was impressed at her fortitude of honorable spark, and did not feel that the need of two extra weeks was necessary.

And now, Nightstalker only had two days. Two days! Her excitement was a drastic foil to Optimus feeling guilty over the information he had given to the Decepticons, but after Bumblebee recovered the Spark Extractor, things were starting to look up some. Instead, because Nightstalker was stir crazy and the stasis cuffs had been put on her wings again to restrain her, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, and Bulkhead all sat on the floor in a semicircle as she told them more about her family. It was a touching gesture of Cliffjumper to distract her like this, and it was working.

"Fli-Ni and I didn't have the same father," Nightstalker said, unconsciously trying to move her wings locked in cuffs. "Fli-Ni said Mom told him his dad was a gladiator."

"A gladiator?" Cliffjumper jumped in. He quirked a brow. "Serious?"

Nightstalker nodded. "Yeah. Said he had a brother too, but he doesn't know either of their names."

*Do you know your mom's name?* Bumblebee asked.

Nightstalker nodded again. "Sure. Mom's name was Ampere."

All three mechs shook their heads—none of them had heard of her.

Nightstalker shrugged. "I didn't expect you to. We were a pretty invisible family." Tapping a finger thoughtfully, Nightstalker smiled. "Fli-Ni was always excited about growing up. He said he was going to get as big as his dad. He didn't really remember what he looked like, but he did remember how big he was. Fli-Ni also had really ornamental armor. It looked good on him. Looked pretty deadly. He said he got that from his dad too." Nightstalker wrinkled her nose and looked down at herself. "I got my armor from Mom. Fli-Ni said I looked almost the spitting image of Mom."

Nightstalker gave a shrug and leaned back on her servos. "Fli-Ni said Mom changed his helm. He said she said something about it being too "easily noticed" and that people would know who his father was with one look. When Fli-Ni asked why that was bad, she wouldn't tell him."

Bulkhead frowned. "Would it have made her a target somehow?"

Nightstalker gave another helpless shrug and spread her hands. "I have no idea. As far as I know, my helm hasn't been changed."

"Well, good," Cliffjumper said with a wink. "It makes you look cute."

Nightstalker narrowed her optics at him. "Yeah, and keep that up and Arcee's gonna throttle you. Don't come crying to me for help when you've got a dent in you the size of the Grand Canyon."

Cliffjumper roared in laughter. "It was just a tease!" he chortled. "Besides, Arcee's just jealous. I'm surprised I don't get knocked out for just LOOKING at you!"

Nightstalker rolled her optics and cut her gaze towards said femme. True, she was glaring sourly at Cliffjumper, but she didn't hold any animosity towards Nightstalker anymore. After a halting, awkward, and almost unsaid apology towards Nightstalker, Nightstalker had finally let the femme know it was all right, and they were as square as they could get—until Cliffjumper said something awkward again. Sometimes, Nightstalker just wanted to strangle the mech he could be so annoying . . . and then other times he was as sweet as could be.

*Do you know anything about your dad?* Bumblebee asked.

Nightstalker vented sharply. "No," she said, "for the most part, I don't. Fli-Ni doesn't remember much of him only that my dad was scrawny and he didn't like him." Cliffjumper and Bulkhead busted out laughing, and even Bumblebee giggled before regaining control of himself. Nightstalker grinned and shook her head. "I have no idea who he was, other than the fact that he was a seeker too, and he was involved in the war. That's why Mom didn't keep any contact with him. She didn't want to get involved in the war."

"But wait," Bulkhead said suddenly. His optics widened. "Nightstalker, having a sparkling takes both bots being bonded. Your mom double bonded? Did Fli-Ni's dad die?"

Nightstalker's optics darkened. "Well . . . Fli-Ni said something about it being Mom changing his helm that ruined it. She didn't want to be associated with HIS dad because he was getting involved in the war, and he said he remembered a night was there was a lot of yelling, and then, after that, his dad didn't come around anymore. He wasn't really sure what happened, and Mom wouldn't tell him anything . . ." Nightstalker shook her head. "He said she started seeing my dad soon after that. After having me, she broke it off with him too because of the war. We assume she broke the bond with Fli-Ni's dad so she could get bonded to mine."

*Gosh,* Bumblebee cooed quietly. *That's so sad. Fli-Ni's dad had to be spark broken if she broke the bond. Not many can survive that."

Nightstalker gave a helpless shrug. "Guess Mom was really strong. Guess that's where I got it." Nightstalker vented quietly, leaning her head back to look at the ceiling. "I think, when Mom died and Fli-Ni and I were on the streets, the worst nights were when it was really cold. We'd bundle up in an abandoned building and connect sparks to share heat. It was even worse if we were running on empty tanks or lonely, but Fli-Ni was always there for me. And he somehow ALWAYS managed to get us some fuel. He got really good at sneaking around, so he always managed to get something, whether it was a cube or an energon lolli or a Visco. We both got REALLY sick one night off of Visco." Nightstalker snorted at the memory and shook her head, snickering quietly. "One of the worst nights of my life. We were purging everywhere."

"Bumblebee! Bulkhead!"

Bumblebee groaned at Ratchet's voice. *Aw, man . . . I guess it's our turn to go scouting*

Nightstalker rolled her optics and pushed Bee when he lagged behind Bulkhead. "Get out of here," she said with a smirk. Her optics sparked. "Just think—two more days, and I'll be able to go with you!"

Bumblebee's optics lit up then, and he scooped her up in an excited hug. *That's right! I can't wait, it's going to be a blast!* With that, he hurried off with Bulkhead, much more excited than before.

Nightstalker grinned at her accomplishment of making Bumblebee's emotions lift, but she wasn't prepared for Cliffjumper to grab her servo and say, "All right, enough playing around! We've got work to do!"

As he started to drag her to the back, Nightstalker yanked against him, sputtering, "Wh-What?"

"You sucked ball bearings trying to fight Megatron!" he declared bluntly, making Nightstalker wrinkle her nose. She pulled against him again.

"I wasn't THAT bad—"

"Enough stalling!" Cliffjumper said, and Nightstalker shrieked when he picked her up and literally slung her over his shoulder. She kicked futilely as he said, "You need practice! First thing's first—get yourself free from me!"

Nightstalker kicked and squirmed, but his grip was solid. As he forcefully took her back to the training room, Nightstalker felt herself wanting to explode from how irritating he could be.

"CLIFFJUMPER!"

* * *

><p>It was a cold bucket of water. It crashed over Nightstalker as she looked at Bumblebee so dejected on Ratchet's medical berth, and she realized, she may be taking that first flight of freedom without Bumblebee.<p>

M.E.C.H. And their knowledge of Cybertronian physiology was growing deeper.

"But, why would they want Bumblebee's T-Cog?" Raf asked.

*I don't know* Bumblebee muttered sharply, *but I'm not going to let them have it. Raf's right—and I'm going to ask them nice and polite what they did to me* But, they all knew with one look at his demeanor that he was going to be anything BUT nice to them.

Nightstalker shifted uncomfortably, sympathizing in Bumblebee's pains as her wings strained against the cuffs. Optimus laid a hand on Bumblebee. "Bumblebee, please," he said gently, "you are not presently equipped to handle this."

The hesitation in words was so slight Nightstalker almost missed it, but she applauded Optimus's ability to handle such a delicate situation so well. He did well in skirting over the issue that Bumblebee was handicapped and couldn't do anything to protect himself without his blasters.

Instead, Nightstalker was surprised to hear Bumblebee mutter in frustration, *Yeah, well, you don't know what it's like to lose something like this.*

"You are mistaken, my friend," Optimus said gently to Bumblebee, and Nightstalker felt her spark swell—when Optimus dropped the leader façade and called you a friend, you know how much he wanted to comfort you. His hand came up to rest on Bumblebee's shoulder. "I do know what it is like to lose a vital part of one's self."

Now THAT stung. Nightstalker compared Optimus's situation to her own confinement and Bumblebee's loss, and she couldn't help but feel that losing a T-Cog was paltry compared to losing your entire being, your own memories.

"And, as a result," Optimus said, "I know the value of putting one's faith in the strength of those around you. We vow to do everything in our power to make you whole again."

Bumblebee's helm dropped dejectedly, and Nightstalker felt her spark hurt. Cliffjumper decided to interject, "Yeah, don't you worry, Bee. We'll have your Cog back in no time!"

"And if not," Miko supplied helpfully, "Ratchet can just make you a new Cog-thing, right?"

Bumblebee blinked at her, half-sputtered a moment, and then he let out an absolutely frustrated cry before sitting heavily on the medical berth again, dropping his helm in his servos with a desolate whir.

Nightstalker cringed as Miko unwittingly crushed Bumblebee's hopes as soon as they started. "What'd I say?" Miko blurted.

"Miko," Ratchet growled, "a T-Cog is a BIO mechanism, not a scrap yard find. If it were that easy, don't you think I would have replaced Bumblebee's voice box by now?"

With that reminder, everything went to the pit. Bumblebee threw up his hands. *That's right, can't talk cause I have no voice box, can't transform without my T-Cog—I'm completely useless!*

Before Nightstalker had a chance to jump in, it was Raf that beat her to the punch.

"You're not worthless, Bee!" he cried out, absently pushing up his glasses.

Bumblebee looked down at Raf a moment, but his optics whirred sadly. He turned away, slumping over. *Whatever . . .*

Nightstalker moved up and sat next to him, putting a silent arm of comfort around him as Bulkhead said, "All right, all right, I say none of us transform until Bumblebee gets his cog back!"

"You're spark's in the right place, Bulkhead," Arcee said bluntly, "but I don't think now is the time to be limiting ourselves."

"Not with Megatron potentially seeking other doomsday devices," Optimus said strictly. "And I fear, not while M.E.C.H. uses Bumblebee's T-Cog for their own sinister purpose."

* * *

><p>"Will SOMEONE keep him occupied so I can get some work done!"<p>

Nightstalker lifted her head towards Ratchet's exasperated yell, and looked down at the couch where Raf and Miko were both playing video games next to her. Nightstalker sat on the platform too because if she stood below she was too short to see. She only had one more day before she could fly—in fact, 15 hours and 9 minutes—but she denied keeping count because Bumblebee couldn't drive.

"Hey, Bee!" Raf called.

*What?*

"How about a video game?"

*Okay*

As Bumblebee walked over, Nightstalker gave the scout a sympathetic smile. She only got a vague shrug in return, and she sighed as they both turned to look at the screen—and she froze. A racing game. Slag.

*Do we HAVE to play this?* he complained sulkily.

Miko cringed. "Ooh . . . Bad call."

"Sorry," Raf said meekly.

"That's okay!" Miko perked up immediately. "That game's lame." And, she tossed the remote aside carelessly, and Nightstalker rolled her optics when it hit her stomach. She put it on the coffee table as Miko snatched up the remote saying, "What do you say we watch some TV?"

In saying so, she turned it on to—Nightstalker felt her tanks flip. Oh Primus, was that—

Everything froze at the sight of the flashy commercial of a sleek car, Bumblebee's alt mode, in fact, in sleek grey and black. "The new Urbana 500," the commercial intoned. "It won't just rock your world—it will transform it."

_Dear Primus._

After a tense beat of silence, Bumblebee reared up with a shrill coo, so distraught that he clenched both hands to his helm and walked away from them.

Bee jumped up from the couch as Nightstalker jumped down from the platform to the ground. "Bee, c'mon," Raf said, trying to cheer him up. "You're just as amazing without wheels. I mean, speed isn't EVERYTHING."

Just when Nightstalker thought there was some semblance of Bumblebee believing Raf, it was crushed in the next instant when Arcee and Jack came screaming in, tires squealing as Arcee spun to a stop.

Oblivious and running off a high of adrenaline, Jack yanked off his helmet, bursting out, "Personal best, Arcee! You hit 120 easy!"

Nightstalker looked up at Bumblebee, and she saw his optics dilate so much they nearly blazed fiery blue. Her energon tanks flipped.

_He's pissed._

"Uh-oh," was all the two delinquents could say. Nightstalker felt herself putting a palm to her forehead. Could they have possibly been more careless!

This time, Bumblebee's angry whir wasn't even comprehensible as words. He just stomped off, wings laid almost flat against his back and servos clenched.

"Bee—"

Before Nightstalker could say anything more, Ratchet cut in, "Bumblebee! Where do you think you're going?"

*I dunno* Bumblebee grumbled. *A walk*

"You can't just go for a walk!" Ratchet exploded. Bumblebee turned back around with those narrowed, blazing blue optics as Ratchet began another famous rant, saying, "We are robots in disguise! Leaving the base in this form puts you at risk of being seen! And of us being discovered!" When Bumblebee turned sullenly, Ratchet whirled him back around to make sure he was getting the point. "You'll just have to remain here in the silo until—"

Bumblebee threw off Ratchet's arm. *Until what?* he exploded angrily, door wings flaring aggressively. *Until you can fix me?*

Nightstalker moved out of the way when Bumblebee stalked by, his wings as flat as they could go. As he disappeared from the room, Nightstalker head Ratchet give an audible sigh. She turned to him.

"Easy, Ratchet," she said. She jerked a thumb back. "I'll go talk to him. He can take it from a girl that's been confined for over a month now."

Walking deeper into the silo, Nightstalker trotted down the halls looking for Bumblebee. Not finding him anywhere, she went up to his berth room and knocked. "Bee?"

True to her thought, he had burrowed away in there like a bear. *Go away*

"No can do," she said, and she walked in despite how he didn't want her in there. "You bug me all the time when I'm down, so it's time for some payback."

Still, her spark softened at the sight of the scout face-flat on his berth, door wings sagging without energy. *How do you do it?* he said as she sat next to him.

She reached up and kneaded that tender spot between his wings. She shrugged. "I don't know," she told him truthfully. "I just kinda . . . do? I don't know, I just accept that's how it is and try to move on?" She affectionately flicked a wing. "Besides that, I had a great cheering party to keep me strong."

Bumblebee turned his head to the side to look at her. *Really? Well . . . Do you think you could do the same for me?*

Nightstalker chuckled and leaned down and hugged him. "Sure thing, cutie-pie. I won't even fly until you can drive."

Bumblebee rolled his optics before giving a burbling sigh. *You should fly when you're allowed to*

"But I don't want to."

Bumblebee sat up, and when he looked at her with those big blue optics, she felt her spark melt. *You need to* he said simply. *I'll be okay. But you—you should go ahead and fly when you can. We might not ever get my T-Cog back*

"All right," she gave in too easily for her own comfort. "But we WILL get your T-Cog back. All right?"

*All right*

Nightstalker smiled and gave him a hug which he eagerly received. "All right, then."

* * *

><p>Primus, she goes on the most exhilarating flight of freedom in her life and Bumblebee goes and pulls this!?<p>

Conflict raged in Nightstalker since she cut her flight short to join Bumblebee in the infirmary where he had been unconscious for some time after a mishap with Bulkhead, Breakdown, and Knockout. She wanted to berate Bumblebee for doing something so stupid, but . . .

Hadn't she almost gone flying when it would have prolonged her confinement? She owed Cliffjumper for that. But, Bumblebee? Instead of staying with him like her gut had said, she had gone flying and provided release for a selfish want instead of supporting him. She felt like half the strict reprimands Bumblebee received were hers!

He was sitting in that defeated position again, and Nightstalker swindled her way in next to him, giving him a sideways hug. "Hey, Bee? You all right?"

*No*

A soft vent escaped Nightstalker. "Bee . . . It's not your fault."

*Yes it is* he said glumly. If possible, his shoulders drooped more. *It was my fault. I was being stupid*

"It's M.E.C.H's fault, and it always was, and always will be," Nightstalker told him softly. Reaching up behind him, Nightstalker rubbed that soothing spot between his wings. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Hang tough, Bee, it'll all work out. We'll get your T-Cog back. I promise."

He didn't say anything, and Nightstalker sighed, realizing that he still didn't believe it. And then, as quick as she had that thought, Nightstalker realized that they didn't HAVE to get his T-Cog back. If they could . . . they could give him a transplant. It may require a donor, but . . .

"I'll be right back, Bee," she said softly. Quickly running to the opposite end of the silo, Nightstalker approached the talking Ratchet and Optimus, and she skidded to a halt in front of them. Ignoring their bewildered looks, she blurted, "I—Ratchet, I want to be a donor for Bumblebee. I want to give him my T-Cog."

Their optics popped. Both mechs looked at each other a moment before Ratchet burst, "You can't be serious—!"

"Very serious," Nightstalker said again, and she nodded to accentuate her point. "I—I want to do it. For Bee."

"Like you could take that strain!" Ratchet interrupted scornfully, a scowl coming across his features. "You would go mad within months!"

Nightstalker set her jaw. "But I'd do it," she repeated. "For Bumblebee. Besides, it may not be permanent. We might get his Cog back."

"Be that as it may," Optimus cut in gently, "Bumblebee already has a set donor."

Nightstalker blinked. She knew it couldn't be Optimus—they relied on him too much. Instead, she turned, mouth agape. "Ratchet, no," she said softly.

"Yes," he said sharply back. "Bumblebee is my responsibility. And . . . I owe him. So you can just keep your sanity and keep your Cog."

Nightstalker could only nod, but she could only wonder why and what Ratchet owed Bumblebee. How? Had Bumblebee saved his life sometime in the past? Nightstalker could only fathom.

Nightstalker shifted next to Arcee, who was next to Cliffjumper, who was next to Bulkhead. Standing in a straight line, strict military style in Ratchet's medbay, everyone's optics looked to Bumblebee sitting idly on the medical berth. Ratchet paced.

"Obviously since I am the other patient involved," Ratchet said, "I will be unable to perform the surgery. Therefore, one of you must serve as my proxy."

Only Cliffjumper seemed to be the willing one. Nightstalker quivered with nerves if he should choose her, Arcee stood absolutely stiff and petrified, and she was almost sure she could hear Bulkhead's metal tinkling. Cliffjumper, however, had a grin on his face, almost as if he WISHED he could get that knife to cut Ratchet open.

Bulkhead was first. Ratchet took one glance and shook his head. "Hm-mh. Better at breaking things."

Bulkhead let out an extremely audible sigh of relief when Ratchet bypassed him. Cliffjumper grinned at Ratchet with willing optics, and when Ratchet looked at him, a visible shudder passed through the medic. "Not if I was dying."

"What?" Cliffjumper burst, laughing openly now. "Is that an insult to my medical skills?"

"You have none," Nightstalker muttered under her breath.

Once again, Ratchet stopped. Arcee tensed more, if possible. "Arcee."

Nightstalker shifted at Ratchet's decision, kinda thankful that he had passed over her too. Her tanks rolled at the thought of performing actual surgery—after all, she only knew enough to keep people alive, not professional stuff.

"Optimus has steadier hands," Arcee stated mechanically. Cliffjumper muttered under his breath, "And how do you know that?" and the sexual innuendo received a sharp jab to his waist which sent the red muscle car chuckling.

"Steady," Ratchet agreed to which Cliffjumper murmured, "Ooh, Optimus getting busy around here—" A sharp _BANG_ and an affronted, "Ow!" interrupted Ratchet briefly. "And much too LARGE to be rooting around beneath my hood," Ratchet finished.

"I can do it."

Oh FRAG she just HAD to go and blurt that! Curse Arcee to the pit for being petrified of surgery! Nightstalker's engines gave a slight hiccup of concern when both Arcee and Ratchet looked to her.

"I've had some experience," Nightstalker heard herself say, and she inwardly cursed Arcee yet again for being so pathetic. "I know my way around a chassis. I can do it."

Ooh, Primus she sounded so steady on the outside while on the inside she was trembling like a leaf in the wind! However, Ratchet only sized her up once before saying, "Granted." And then, in a wry tone, "You're off the hook, Arcee."

Things proceeded . . . smoothly as could be expected. Nightstalker had Ratchet in stasis before another Autobot homing beacon was unearthed and the bots all left the silo, save the patients and the newbie surgeon. Bumblebee gave Nightstalker a thumbs up after the others left to bolster her confidence in the coming surgery, and Nightstalker took a deep breath and her hand hovered above the switch to put Bumblebee in stasis.

_C'mon, don't lose your nerve now . . . Oh Primus, help me . . . Oh Primus, what am I doing, I am SO not qualified for this . . ._

A beep and, "PRIME!" made Nightstalker jump three feet out of her protoform with a squeal. Bumblebee ran to the center of the room as Fowler said, "Breaking news," and left Nightstalker gripping the computer and trying to restart her spark.

*What is it?* Bumblebee asked enthusiastically. *I can help!*

"Huh?" Fowler said to the incomprehensible beeps. "Where's Prime?"

*Well . . . I don't know. They went after another Autobot homing beacon.*

Taking in several deep cycles, stabilizing her fritzing systems, Nightstalker interrupted Ratchet's stasis, figuring she'd need him. Or Fowler would. Or . . . someone—Primus she was just glad to get out of having to do that surgery!

"Look, let him know," and Fowler's voice slowed as if Bumblebee was dumb and couldn't understand him, "I just received access to satellite imagery, which I believe pinpoints the center of operations of M.E.C.H."

Nightstalker's head jerked up, and she heard Bumblebee whisper, *My Cog . . .* and she KNEW he was getting ideas.

*Where is it? Tell me, I'll handle it! Where's the base? They've got my T-Cog!*

"OH FOR THE LOVE OF—GET ME SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS SOMETHING OTHER THAN BLEEP!"

"I can help!" Nightstalker said, coming around to the front. She jumped when she heard Ratchet's slurred and nearly incomprehensible words—which didn't make a lick of sense anyways.

"What? Do I hear a fuzor in need of voice box repair?"

"What's a fuzor!?" Fowler exploded, at complete wits end with it all. "What's going on over there?"

Nightstalker turned, watching with stunned disbelief to see a half-delirious Ratchet raise himself up, saying, "I am able! Just ask Bantor! He was all Mandrill before I put a tiger in his tank!"

Nightstalker blinked at Ratchet, halfway between laughing at him or ignoring him, but it was Bumblebee's, *I've gotta go get my T-Cog* that snapped her back to the present.

"Bee," she said warningly.

"But Bee," Raf said, "you heard what Optimus said about leaving the base."

*I know, but this is my one chance to get my T-Cog back!*

"Send the coordinates, Agent Fowler," Nightstalker heard Jack said with easy commanding skills. "We'll make sure Optimus gets them."

Nightstalker blinked. Well, why not just take command of the whole situation. *Let me go get it!* Bumblebee half-ordered half-pleaded them. *We've got the coordinates! I'll just grab it and run!*

"Oh no you won't!" Nightstalker said, whirling on Bumblebee and narrowing her optics. "I am NOT having a repeat of what happened with Knockout! _I_ will be the one getting your T-Cog, and YOU will be staying here."

Bumblebee tinkled a laugh, and Nightstalker narrowed her optics at the triumphant look in his. *But Nightstalker* he cajoled, *you're barely a greenhorn at fighting. You're going to need some backup*

Nightstalker blinked, and she grumbled, "I hate you," and marched over to the ground bridge controls. "I don't know how you pester me into these things either . . ."

*It's my cute charm*

"That I'm gonna rip from your face."

Bumblebee just laughed, knowing he had bested her, and as they hopped through the ground bridge, Nightstalker took a deep breath to steel her nerves.

_Here we go again._

* * *

><p>Nightstalker came back online with a heavy groan.<p>

_Primus Starscream's missiles can pack a punch . . . and I didn't even get hit . . ._

Then, she realized where she was, and what had been going on.

With a start, Nightstalker jolted back online and leapt to her feet, looking around for Starscream and M.E.C.H. but all she found was Bumblebee on his knees, holding a blasted T-Cog and silent little tears streaming down his cheeks.

_Oh . . . Bumblebee . . ._

Quickly coming to his side, Nightstalker knelt next to him, touching his forearm. He didn't respond save for a broken, *I'm never going to transform again*

Nightstalker leaned her helm into his. "Yes, you will," she said quietly. "Maybe not with your own, but Ratchet's going to give you his."

A little sob slipped out of him on a depressed whir. *But . . . he shouldn't have to give up transforming just for me. I should have been able to retrieve my own Cog. I really am useless. Ratchet would be better off keeping his own Cog*

"Don't say that," Nightstalker told him. Taking both his cheeks and forcing him to look at her instead of the smoking T-Cog, Nightstalker focused both optics on his. "Listen to me, Bee. You are not useless. You're the one that took down Skyquake. You're the one that got Immobilizer. And the Spark Extractor. You are NOT useless Bee, and you never have been. If anything, I'm the useless one. I was knocked out by Starscream not before five seconds of the battle."

A depressed coo left his artificial vocals, and Bumblebee wrapped his arms around Nightstalker. Holding her tightly, he muttered, *Thanks*

She dropped a kiss on his head. "No problem. I owe you after all the crap you put up with when I was incapacitated."

Hearing a ground bridge open, Nightstalker looked out of the blasted in wall to see the other bots coming out with weapons drawn, on alert for the situation. Nightstalker sighed and tugged Bumblebee to his feet. "C'mon . . . Let's go, Bee."

*Okay . . .*

And despite how much trouble Nightstalker thought they would get into for leaving the base like that, Optimus didn't say anything to them. She thought it was because Bumblebee was so distraught over losing his T-Cog. Still, Bumblebee refused to accept Ratchet's T-Cog. He said his, or he wouldn't have any. That sent Ratchet into a hissy fit unlike Nightstalker had ever seen before, but . . . He repaired the Cog as best he could and performed the surgery.

Surgery Nightstalker was once again happy to avoid doing.

"I . . . did what I could."

Nightstalker sighed at the defeat in Ratchet's voice. He hadn't even given Bumblebee the chance to try it out yet . . .

"Our scout could not have been in better hands, old friend," Optimus said, resting a servo on Ratchet's shoulder.

The comforting gesture brought Ratchet's head up, but he still didn't look convinced. As Bumblebee got his feet, Ratchet turned quickly, saying, "Easy, Bumblebee!"

Instead, completely contradictory to Ratchet's words, Bumblebee proclaimed, *Aw, yeah!* He struck several macho poses, saying, *I feel good!*

"Please," Ratchet stressed, "recovery takes time."

Still, Bumblebee ignored Ratchet's words, took a stance, and tried to transform. His transformation moved a lot further than it had before, but he failed to make the transformation. *Huh?*

Ratchet almost turned his optics away as he muttered, "The damage was . . . severe."

Nightstalker tip toed up and put a hand on Ratchet's tight fist, but he seemed unresponsive to her. Instead, Bumblebee tried to transform again, and when that was a fail, muttered, *C'mon . . .* and tried again.

This time, he folded down into his alt mode perfectly.

The look on Ratchet's face was one Nightstalker would carry in her processor forever, but currently, she was cheering with the rest of them as Bumblebee revved his engine loudly, spinning his wheels so he turned a 180. His door popped open, and he shouted, *Where do you want to go, Raf?* and honked his horn eagerly.

Raf laughed and scrambled into the car. "Anywhere! Just drive!"

In saying so, Bumblebee's tires squealed on the silo floor as he floored his gas pedal and screamed out at top speed. *C'mon, Nights!*

Nightstalker whooped, and ignoring Ratchet's laughter and half-hearted warnings about standard breaking procedure, transformed and shot after him, nearly skidding her bottom and Bumblebee's top as they both squeezed from the entrance of the silo at the same time. She barely heard Cliffjumper's, "Hey, wait up!"

Squealing with Bumblebee, Nightstalker performed several dangerously low banks and flips while Bumblebee tore several doughnuts into the pavement of the road. Bumblebee laughed before facing Jasper and yelling, *We're gonna hit top speed!* and the yellow muscle car shot off with a squeal of tires, racing towards the city.

Nightstalker shrieked and turned her nose straight upward and soared up, as high as she dared until it was getting cold, and then, she turned straight back down, hitting breakneck speeds until she pulled up. With a shrill shout, Nightstalker skidded over the ground of Nevada and left a plume of dust that passed right over Cliffjumper who was racing after Bumblebee.

"Hey, no fair!"

His belted indignation only served to make Nightstalker laugh and fly back up to a safe height before speeding along next to Bumblebee. Raf's high-pitched laughter was barely heard above the roar of his engines and his own hollering.

Nightstalker didn't know how long they played outside, but the rest of that day was filled full of laughter, jokes, screaming, and joy. Ratchet had to finally pull rank on Bumblebee, saying he would strain his new welds, to which the scout did admit he was feeling it. So while Bumblebee cheerfully took Raf home, as did Arcee and Bulkhead take Jack and Miko home, Cliffjumper retired while Nightstalker continued her flight. In truth, she was too wound up to do more than keep flying and burn off her excited energy and happiness over the day and having her flight back. The stretch of her wings was glorious!

Flying over to the Grand Canyon, despite Ratchet's protests which Nightstalker pacified him with, "I'm only a ground bridge away," Nightstalker played among the great peaks and deep valleys. She did radical tricks yet again, flipping and turning and rolling and steep dives until she thought she would make herself overheat. Eventually, she slowed, enjoying the crisp night air.

Nightstalker glided leisurely through the night skies, rolling in relaxed barrel rolls above the Grand Canyon. This freedom . . . a sigh hissed through her vents. THIS was what she loved.

She had already spent much time playing around, practicing her most radical tricks, and burning enough energon so that Ratchet would want to lock her into stasis for the next vorn. Now she let herself relax a little and coast, willing her pounding spark to slow down.

That was when she saw a powerful figure casually leaning against a high cliff face, silver moonlight illuminating his grey metal.

A painful hitch splayed through her systems, and Nightstalker felt her thrusters kick hard as she jerked to a stop. She heard a tingle in her communications on the open line, and uncertainly, she lent her audio receptors to his raspy voice.

_"Nightstalker,"_ she heard him say amicably, a genuinely pleased tone overlapping his voice. _"Grand show. Your aerial skills have not diminished in the slightest."_

He still hadn't moved . . . a plus. Her spark rate skipped a bit faster. Nightstalker's metal crawled a little remembering how ruthless he had been in battle to make sure Optimus would stay as Orion forever.

"Thanks," she said back quietly, shifting uncomfortably.

As if sensing her hesitation, he chuckled. _"Do not hold back on my account, Nightstalker. I will not hurt you. Come down—off the battlefield of war, between us, neither Autobot nor Decepticon exists."_

His voice was so suave, so seductive, so . . . just like she remembered. Before Nightstalker had realized it, she had coasted down directly to him, transformed, and landed in front of the Decepticon leader.

_This was so dangerous . . ._

Just like with Optimus, Nightstalker had to crane her head back to look up at him, below his waist height. However, he accommodated himself for her lack of height, kneeling down.

"It has been quite some time, Nightstalker," Megatron said to her, red optics trailing over her. Nightstalker felt a chill shiver through her systems that had nothing to do with fear. Nervously, she turned off her Autobot tracking signal just as she heard Ratchet's worried voice in her audio receptor.

_"Nightstalker! You are in extremely close proximity with a Decepticon! Are you all right?"_

Nightstalker calmly replied, her orange optics level with Megatron's luminous gaze. "Just fine, Ratchet." She paused. "It's just Screamer. Banged up, begging for help. Megatron probably got him." The quirk of a smile tipped Nightstalker's lips, and she felt empowered when even Megatron's lips twitched at the age-old joke.

_"Get out of there," _he ordered. _"Now. Starscream may act weak, but it's a trap. Why is your homing signal offline? I can't find you anywhere."_

"I'm fine, Ratch," she said lightly, shaking her head. "I left him. As for my signal, I don't know. I think I've hit some funky waves, you keep coming in and out. Either that, or Starscream's jamming my signal."

_"Nightstalker, get out now," _Ratchet repeated urgently. _"Land and give me your coordinates. I'll bridge you out of there."_

"What?" Nightstalker felt a little guilty that she was lying to him, but she doubted she would ever get another chance to speak with Megatron like this. "Missed that, Ratch. Well, don't worry. I'll fly a while longer and make my way back to base."

Nightstalker cut the conversation short, eliciting a rumbling chuckle from Megatron's chest. "Quite deceptive for an Autobot," he said, gaze leveling at her. "The energon of a Decepticon flows through you still."


	31. Addicted

**Author's Note:**

**Okay, pretty much, all you need to know about this chapter is that, yes, Nightstalker knocks boots with Megatron and she agrees to keep coming back.**

**It's basically all a smut scene, and has been edited out because that irascible spitfire reported Fraternizing for its sexual scenes. Thus, to keep the story up, I have edited out all of the smut scenes.**

**If you want to read the full chapter without it being cropped, send me a PM and I'll gladly link you to where you may read it.**

* * *

><p>Nightstalker paused, looking warily at this beautiful mech before her. "What do you want?" she asked slowly.<p>

Megatron stood. "Walk with me," he said, clasping his servos behind his back. Nightstalker followed him and craned her head back to look at him. "Is it too much to ask of a mech to have an unrequited and intelligent conversation for once?"

Nightstalker ducked her head as they walked down the mountain. "Of course not," she murmured. She couldn't honestly turn a request like that down. "But why me?"

"You happened to be available tonight, and in close proximity," Megatron stated, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. "Besides," his voice crooned a bit more suggestively, "we do have quite a history together."

Nightstalker's spark rate quickened. Catching her breath, she briefly remembered what those servos could do to her before shaking it off, fluttering her wings nervously. "Um . . . Yes . . . Ah . . ."

Megatron laughed then, a laugh that would have seemed sinister, but Nightstalker knew a true laugh from him when she heard one. "Nightstalker, loosen up! You're acting so timid!"

Her lips twitched. "Because the last time we met it ended up with me locked in stasis for two Earth days . . ." Not to mention she was suddenly thinking this conversation wasn't _just_ for conversation . . . And her issue with him and tricking her into accepting interfacing with him not out of her own free will . . .

He paused then, looking down at her as they worked their way down the mountain. "You attacked me first."

Nightstalker pursed her lips. "Because you were attacking my friends."

"Friends . . ." she heard him grunt, the word _Autobot_ just barely muttered under his breath. "You were in _my_ territory, using _my_ space bridge."

"Only to get Optimus's memories back!"

Megatron scoffed. "He was Orion. At that point Optimus didn't exist."

"And he didn't exist because he saved the world from Unicron," she jabbed a finger into Megatron's stomach plates, "which _you_ happened to help wake up." Megatron didn't say anything to that, but his feet paused in their walk. He looked down at her, and Nightstalker felt her lips twist and pucker. "All right, so maybe you did help stop Unicron . . . but only because it threatened your own pride."

Megatron blinked at her once, and Nightstalker suddenly found his lips pressed firmly against hers. Nightstalker whimpered at the sudden onslaught, squirming away only to meet his hand at the small of her back. She shivered at the familiar feeling of his clawed fingers around her wings.

A tiny, trembling breath spilled form Nightstalker's lips when he released her for a breath. A rumble rolled through his chest.

"When you pout your lips like that . . ." Megatron growled, his mouth trailing lightly up to her audio receptors. His lustful rasp made chills run through her systems.

"I can barely resist fragging you again."

Nightstalker squeezed her optics shut, willing her racing spark to slow. Primus knew when _he_ said _that_, she wanted him just as badly. She heard little tinkles come from her metal that clattered together. No, she didn't want this. She never had—or, maybe she was tricking herself. Maybe she was only uncertain the first time she had interfaced with him, and enjoyed it the rest of the times? But, she had enjoyed it the first time too . . .

Megatron gave a thoughtful grumble before Nightstalker felt herself hoisted up by one hand, her tiny size so lightweight to Megatron's strength.

His hazy red optics trailed slowly over her body. "Nightstalker," he crooned suggestively, "how many persuasive words will it take for you to agree to interface with me?"

Her spark rate quickened. She gripped his forearm to keep her balance. Against her will, her thoughts returned to all those nights she had spent with Megatron, and her internal temperatures rose.

"I . . . I don't think so . . ." she murmured, shyly looking away. "It wouldn't . . . be for the best, I think . . ." Frag it all, did she want this or not!?

Megatron chuckled, the sultry sound making prickles of anticipation chase down her body. "Don't be so demure, Nightstalker," he told her, a rare light of mischief coming into his optics. "You have no need to hold back with me."

"Well . . ." Unconsciously, her orange optics touched his broad chest where the Decepticon emblem stood proudly. "I—I'm an Autobot, and . . . you're . . ."

"I told you already, Nightstalker," he said, intense gaze piercing her. "When it is only you and I, there is no Autobot or Decepticon."

His fingers began to play softly around her wings, and Nightstalker breathed out a small sigh of bliss, arching slightly as he began to tease her hot spots. Then, she stiffened, trying to push at his hands, stammering, "I—I—Well, it might not matter to you, but—" A sudden whimper escaped her vocals. Curse her body betraying her . . . ! "I—I'm duty bound to them . . ." She felt herself groaning on the inside in defeat. Her argument was falling flat before she could get it out there. Pathetically, she heard herself saying, "I'll get in trouble . . . Optimus would be so mad . . ."

"Then he doesn't have to know," Megatron said easily. Nightstalker felt herself relaxing into him again, unwillingly giving in. _She_ would know, though . . . "Is it too much to ask to share another night with you?" he crooned softly to her. When he scooped her close to his chest, Nightstalker felt the tingle of the vibrations of his chest when he spoke. "With you gone, I receive fewer conversations where I am relaxed . . . Consider this relaxing a friend."

Nightstalker felt her head loll to rest against him. "You know just what to say to get me to give in . . ." she whispered softly, fingers trailing over his chest.

***scene truncated***

Megatron leaned against the cliff-face and Nightstalker snuggled into his chest.

She gave a soft sigh. "This is nice . . ." Nightstalker hummed through her chest, fingers playing with the wiring in Megatron's neck. She let her wings droop tiredly. "I like it when you stay . . ."

An answering rumble rolled from Megatron's chest. "I can't stay."

This time, her wings drooped with depression and her shoulders slumped. She looked up into his red optics pleadingly. "You really can't?"

A smirk tipped up his lips even as Nightstalker felt his soothing fingers kneading between her wings. "And I hardly believe that even _you_ can stay out all night," Megatron chuckled. "What would your Autobot friends think? They would send a posse out for you."

Nightstalker dipped her head shyly and guiltily. "Well . . . maybe . . ." She snuggled more into his broad chest with a relaxed sigh. "Let's just stay like this for a while . . ."

Comfortable silence overtook them for some time beneath the stars. It was later when Megatron spoke up quietly.

"Meet me 50 kilometers north of here in four days time," he grumbled. "Same time. Same . . . activities."

Nightstalker felt her breathing hitch when his mouth nuzzled her wingtips. Even though she knew it was wrong, Nightstalker nodded.

"I'll be there."


	32. Snap

**Author's Note:**

**WARNING! : hot yumminess ahead. Brace yourselves. :D Oh, and Cliffjumper fluff**

* * *

><p>And, for that those first weeks, <em>no one knew a thing.<em>

Nightstalker crept in and out the silo with the skill Fli-Ni had given to her for creeping around Kaon. In truth, her disposition improved some those weeks as she played with Megatron—both literally and figuratively. She especially loved the fun flights where they would play tag, as foreign as that would sound to any of her fellow Autobots. Sadly, Nightstalker tended to lose those more often than not, but that didn't diminish how much fun they were.

The only thing that put a damper on her day was Wheeljack showing back up.

Now, she couldn't rag that hard on the Autobot. Bulkhead was really happy to see him. But her? No, he still looked at her the way he had the first time he had been at the base, full of distrust and contempt because he remembered her as a Decepticon. Bumblebee said he just hadn't had a chance to get used to her new colors yet, but Nightstalker didn't believe that so easily. After all, she knew his type—stubborn to the core. She would have to move mountains to get his attitude to change.

So, Nightstalker glided around that night, thankful to finally get some quiet after such a busy day. Wheeljack and Bulkhead were talking below at his ship, but she was too far up for them to really see since her black paint blended in with the night.

Nightstalker sighed, turning in relaxed barrel rolls in the skies. Ratchet was getting cranky that she was burning through so much energon, but Nightstalker could only give the quip to think of how many fliers Megatron is supplying and that she was catching up on missed time. After all, flying was soothing, and it chased away the demons of the past—miserable haunting that seemed to come back to her more often than not of late.

Just as she started to slip into her ruminations of who her brother's killer was, a cheery voice filled her audio receptors.

_"Niiiiiiiiiightstaaaaaaaaalke r . . . !"_

Righting herself with an irritated snort, she said back, "Hello, Cliffjumper."

Why could she not escape from his chatter ANYWHERE she was? She thought for once she was going to have a peaceful flight—!

_"What's going up?"_ he asked.

"Why aren't you recharging?" she shot back.

_"Ouch, glad I don't take insult easy. Can't I talk?"_

"That's all you ever do," Nightstalker said wryly, rolling her optics. "Can't take a chance to enjoy the silence?"

She could practically envision that cheeky grin of his. _"Who, me? Quiet? Nights, I thought you knew me!"_

Nightstalker grumbled mildly. "Unfortunately, I do . . ." And Primus knew she wasn't going to have one quiet moment to herself for the rest of the night until she pleaded recharge and collapsed on her berth and bitched at him for the next half hour after that. "What do you want?"

_"Just a chat,"_ he said amicably, but Nightstalker could only roll her optics again. _"I'm bored. Entertain me."_

Nightstalker vented sharply and whirled back to head over the top of the base again. "Cliffjumper, I was having a nice night all to myself before you started pestering me again. And annoying me. And bothering me, and just overall sticking your nose where I don't want it, and I would LOVE to have just ONE night to myself, no one talking forever a minute about absolutely nothing in my audio receptors . . ."

_ "Aw, c'mon, I'm not THAT bad, am I?"_

Venting again, Nightstalker groused to herself, but honestly, in a really weird way, she was glad Cliffjumper had contacted her. Sure, his incessant chatter could disarm a person and make them wish they had never been born with audio receptors, but she was grateful for the distraction he provided from her morbid thoughts.

"Fine," she said begrudgingly. "You're not THAT bad. But don't let that go to your head! You're still bad!"

_"Bad in a good way?"_ he rumbled back.

Nightstalker paused. "Oh?"

_ "Oh?"_

Nightstalker rolled a couple barrel rolls, fluttering her wings. "Hm. That sounds like a flirt."

_ "It wasn't a flirt."_

"Says you. You're trying a bit too hard to be innocent."

_ "Am not."_

"Are too."

_ "Am not."_

Nightstalker growled shortly. "Yes, you ARE. Forget about me killing you—I'll just tell Arcee, and she'll do it for me."

_ "I told you I wasn't flirting!"_

"Yes, you were!"

_"Nights!"_ She heard him make an annoyed sound from over the line. _"Look, YOU'RE the one that assumed I was flirting, I was just trying to make small conversation!"_

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you," Nightstalker said flippantly. She soared back over the base. "So? What's the deal with you and Arcee anyways?"

Cliffjumper sputtered. _"Wh-What?"_

Nightstalker did a lazy flip, losing precious altitude before flying upwards again. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. What happened to kinky nights?"

Still, try as hard as she could to unnerve Cliffjumper, all he shot back was a cheeky, _"Oh, you say you have kinky sex, Nights?"_

"No!" she exploded, heat searing her cheeks at the lie. "Look, what's going on with you and Arcee? What happened to the look in your optics that day she had to confront Airachnid? Where'd that look go?"

There was an uncomfortable silence over the comm. link_. "Well . . . Look, I just—It's nothing. What are you? Psychologist?"_

With that, he hung up. Nightstalker blinked. _Where the heck had that come from?_

Before she had time to contemplate it long, Nightstalker turned back to fly over the base again-and saw one ship flying AWAY from the base.

She narrowed her optics. Excuse her? Where were those two going . . . ?

Without delay, and without much thought, Nightstalker trailed Wheeljack's ship, wondering what mischief the two Wreckers could be getting into. It was a stretch as the Jackhammer had stronger thrusters than her, but Nightstalker was able to follow with some difficulty. What REALLY got her, however, is what those two dumb Wreckers were doing.

_ Just like a Wrecker . . ._

What was she supposed to THINK when she saw Wheeljack in epic throw down with this "Dreadwing" character he had tracked for so long? And Bulkhead was right there with him! Just when she thought they had the crafty—and, cowardly—'Con pinned, a blast shook from the ground up.

Nightstalker yelped involuntary at the close quarters in which Bulkhead and Wheeljack had to withstand that blow, but her peril was suddenly made clear when the 'Con transformed. With a painful spark beat, Nightstalker dove for cover behind a rock. That Dreadwing guy was huge! Maybe almost as tall as Optimus? Her spark beat fluttered nervously in her chest when she heard him land near her. She barely took an in cycle, pressing her wings tight so her metal wouldn't clatter together and give her away.

What to do, what to do . . . By the time Nightstalker had gathered enough courage to even THINK of trying to attack Dreadwing, the 'Con had already made off with Bulkhead in tow.

_ Oh Primus, what am I supposed to do . . . ?_

With a belated smack to her face, Nightstalker hurried to the rubble. Surely if Bulkhead made it through fine, Wheeljack could too . . .

Digging, Nightstalker tried to find Wheeljack. She wasn't sure whether she was happy or ready to leak lubricant all over herself when Optimus came with a scowl set in his face. Still, they got Wheeljack uncovered quickly.

"What took you so long, Bulk? Don't tell me riding with Prime has made you—" Wheeljack caught sight of her, and he blinked. His wide optics turned towards where she pointed her thumb. "Soft?"

"If you will not take orders from me, that is one thing," Optimus said strictly to the Wrecker. Nightstalker shuffled her feet and inched away, wings perking nervously at that severe tone of voice. She knew THAT all too well. "But when you place one of MY Autobots in danger-"

"With all due respect," Wheeljack interrupted—oh Primus, how brash was he? Interrupting Optimus—! "Bulkhead knew the risks. Every Wrecker does. Now I'm sure he's just somewhere in this rubble."

Nightstalker cleared her throat. Cold blue optics pinned to her. "Um . . . Not the case . . ."

After explaining what she had seen, consulting with Ratchet, and getting Wheeljack utterly irate under that complexion of his, Nightstalker opted to follow the Jackhammer while Optimus somehow squeezed into the undersized ship. She didn't know what the two could possibly be talking about in there, but she had a feeling that it was much safer on the OUTSIDE than on the inside with all that pent up tension.

Now, when they were scouting the shipping yard Bulkhead's signal had led them to, Nightstalker was stuck in between Wheeljack and Optimus. It was amazing, the difference in these two was. Optimus seemed so UPTIGHT next to the relaxed and nonchalant Wrecker. The 180 flip was a bit disconcerting. What was surreal was the bomb fused to Bulkhead's chassis.

"Oh scrap."

Nightstalker's spark fluttered in her chassis. She was no expert with bombs—Wheeljack set to diffusing it while she stood awkwardly to the side, a third wheel—or fourth, if you counted—

Optimus?

Nightstalker whirled, spark slamming harder. "Scrap guys, where's Optimus!"

Wheeljack just scoffed before giving his full attention to the bomb. "It's like I told ya. When the scrap hits the fan blades, the generals are the first to bail."

"Not Optimus," Nightstalker and Bulkhead said at the same time. Nightstalker's optics flicked to the Wrecker, and she nervously eyed the shipping crates stacked high. "I'm going to go look for him."

"Nightstalker," Bulkhead said nervously, "Don't! You're not fully trained yet, and Dreadwing—"

"Isn't a lightweight, I know," she said. She fanned her wings a moment before taking a deep breath. "Don't worry, I'm not stupid. Just want to make sure Optimus isn't getting into more scrap than he can handle . . ."

It was easy to follow Optimus's booming voice-and then, even easier to follow Dreadwing's blaster fire. Nightstalker got on top of the crates for a better look, and seeing the flashing lights of laser fire, hurried off in that direction. Like Pit was she going to allow any 'Con to get his claws into Optimus. She squeaked and jumped back down when Optimus climbed up, Dreadwing following, to the top of the crates. Nightstalker leapt down and took off running in the effort not to get seen—the element of surprise was about all she had—and ducked around some boxes, uncannily aware of how close the blaster fire was getting. Darned mechs had longer legs than her!

And then, the blaster fire stopped. Nightstalker ducked behind another set of boxes, spark pounding wildly in her chest at the sudden stagnant in battle. What was going on? Spark lurching uncertainly in her chassis, Nightstalker peeked around the edge of her cover—

And promptly screamed when Dreadwing's hand came down inches away from grabbing her wings. Jerking away, she couldn't avoid a powerful backhand to her jaw, and she sprawled back on her back. Dreadwing released a guttural roar, sword arm raising high, and Nightstalker blinked up at the gleam of the blade in terror.

He jerked to a halt. He gasped audibly, lurching back as if having seen a ghost, and he sheathed his blade as quick as he had had it in his hand. He blinked owlishly at her a moment before scowling, lugging his heavy weaponry, and charging past, on the hunt for Optimus.

Nightstalker quaked. Her servo fluttered to her chest as she pressed a hand there in the effort to control her sputtering spark. That was too close—oh Primus—he stopped, why did he STOP?

Standing shakily to her feet, Nightstalker pressed her hands to her mouth and took several deep in cycles, knees knocking as she hobbled in the direction Dreadwing had gone. A guttural roar from Optimus sounded out. Locking her shaking knees, Nightstalker ran towards the sound and was met with this sight:

Dreadwing, pinned beneath a shipping crane, Optimus and Wheeljack and Bulkhead all coming to stand towering above him. Unfortunately, the bomb was still ticking cheerily away on Bulkhead's chest.

"Dreadwing," Optimus ordered, "diffuse the bomb, or fall victim to your own device."

Nightstalker crept closer, eyeing this Decepticon more closely. She could see it in his movements—the way he jutted his chin up even from his prone position, and the bite to his words. "I will gladly sacrifice myself to avenge my brother."

"Then we will in turn gladly join the All Spark with OUR brother."

Nightstalker squeaked—wait, say WHAT? Was he crazy!

"And with you," Wheeljack echoed. He crossed his arms. "You'll never shake us."

He had to be out of his fragging mind. Nightstalker glanced between Optimus and Dreadwing and realized that, yes, Optimus DID think that this was going to work. Her optics flicked to the bomb on Bulkhead's chest. Less than five minutes now.

It was eerie, stifling silence in which the next minute passed, no one budging an inch except for Bulkhead who shuffled uncertainly. As time slipped beneath the four minute mark, Nightstalker felt the need to speak up.

"Optimus, this isn't going to work."

"If he values his life," Optimus said darkly, "then this will."

Nightstalker set her jaw. "But, Optimus—"

"If you are not willing, Nightstalker, then you may return to base."

A frustrated breath left Nightstalker. Contacting the Prime via the comm link, she told him, _"Let me torture him. It's the only way to get results."_

_"I do not condone torture in any form, Nightstalker,"_ was all he would return to her.

Nightstalker shifted, setting her jaw tightly. He really was delusional if he thought this was going to work. She could see it in the mech's optics—he wasn't budging anytime soon. This was a mech that had suffered the loss of his spark brother. He was suffering from spark break, so death would merely be relief from the pain he lived in. Much less, with his death, he was going to get to take out three Autobots with him. What better a martyr for the Decepticons?

Nightstalker shifted. A miniscule click sounded from her wrists. Primus knew she only used these whenever a prisoner was being especially feisty and she had to tie them down. And only Primus knew how much trouble she was going to get into with Optimus and the team after this, but . . . if she didn't do it, they were all going to die for this mech's broken spark.

Letting the chains roll out swiftly, Nightstalker leapt into action and threw them at Optimus. The bot jolted, and it was only the element of surprise that allowed her to catch him off guard. Both ends latched in his shoulders, and Nightstalker transformed, whipping around him three times in her jet form before transforming back to her bipedal mode. She ducked through his legs, entangling him further, and then, she yanked—HARD.

Optimus crashed thunderously to the ground, entangled fully in the barbed chains that were used up to their full length because they weren't meant to hold a bot much bigger than his size. A "one size fits all" policy, if you will, and Nightstalker refused to let herself say sorry—if she did right now, she'd let him loose again. And if she hadn't tied him up, he would stop her.

"Nightstalker! What are you doing?"

"What's necessary," she snapped at the fallen Prime that glared from behind his battle mask. "Don't struggle. Those barbs will only dig deeper."

"Nightstalker," Bulkhead gaped, "wh-what are—what the frag-"

"Shut up," she said. "This is MY job. It's the only way this stubborn aft here," and she kicked Dreadwing's head lightly, "is going to listen." Jumping on the crane, Nightstalker cocked an eyebrow down at Dreadwing. "Now, I used to be a Decepticon. Do you want to know what my function on the Decepticon ship was?"

Dreadwing narrowed his optics, and Optimus ordered, "Nightstalker, stand down!"

"My function," she said, ignoring Optimus completely, "was torturer. Now," and she glanced at the timer, "I can make these last three minutes of life VERY painful for you, or you can simply diffuse the bomb. Choice?"

Dreadwing hiked up his chin. "Do your worst."

Nightstalker flashed a wicked grin, and she felt Optimus start from beside her. "If you really want that."

The tiniest flicker of doubt chased its way across Dreadwing's facial plates at the sudden 180 change in her personality. Waltzing over to where his arms were securely pinned to the ground, she tapped his hand. "Let's start with an old favorite of mine. I'm going to tear your servo to pieces, part by part, wire by wire."

Dreadwing hiked a disturbingly curious brow, almost as if he didn't believe her, but she let him know she was VERY serious when she slammed her claws into his palm and ripped up the plating there. Despite the pain, Dreadwing merely bucked and didn't make a sound. Both Bulkhead and Wheeljack cringed away from the gruesome sight, but Optimus was on the other side and couldn't see.

"Nightstalker! I said stand down! That is an order!"

She ignored him again, but fought Dreadwing's struggling hand down and began the same work on him that she had done to Cliffjumper. Pulling and yanking wires free, taking no time to let it sink it, Nightstalker plunged headlong into giving him the most excruciating pain possible. Energon pooled at her peds. Dreadwing continued to writhe and jerk as she mauled his hand beyond recognition. Even Bulkhead pleaded she stop at some point, even Wheeljack saying it was sick—

But neither moved a servo to help Dreadwing.

"Not good enough yet?" she snarled. She stepped on the broken mass of clumped wiring without a second thought, using her heel to grind them more, and Dreadwing's optics brightened to sun-spot bright in pain. She glanced to Bulkhead and the bomb. "I've still got two minutes. What shall we go for next? Ah, yes, the poison."

"Nightstalker, please, don't! Reconsider!"

Nightstalker's optics flashed at the Prime's words. "I'll reconsider when he agrees to diffuse the bomb!" she snapped. She smiled sickly sweet at Dreadwing and knelt down, trailing her claws down the side of his cheek. He visibly twitched away from her touch, optics studying her closely, almost fearful but almost wondrous. The disconcerting look was almost enough to unnerve Nightstalker. Opening her arm, she brought out the green fluid Airachnid had gifted her with. Dreadwing's optics followed it before focusing back in on her face. "So? Do you like it? Just wait till you see what it can do to you."

Opening the precious vial, Nightstalker dripped a couple drops onto the front of his armor. He flinched, hissing involuntary before refusing to say a word.

Nightstalker hiked up a brow. "Oh? Think we're tough by not making any sounds? Well, that's bothering me. If you want to be silent, then you can STAY silent." Nightstalker dug her claws into his mouth and tried to pry his jaw open. "I'm going to make you DRINK this. Maybe your voice box will completely ruined, and you'll be as silent as Bumblebee!"

The sudden vehemence of her snarl startled Nightstalker, and her spark flipped as she realized that was way more personal than she had intended. If that were true . . . then this vial would be meant for Megatron in retaliation for what he had done to Bumblebee. Still, she pulled and pried at Dreadwing's mouth that he stubbornly kept shut. She dripped a couple more warning drops onto his closed lips, patience wearing thin as the poison ate through his metal and smoke rose, when he suddenly said,

"Very well."

Nightstalker recoiled, not because he had scared her, but because he was . . . willingly giving up. His optics pinned to hers with unnerving calculation, and retreating and putting away the venom, Nightstalker backed up and let Optimus back up when Wheeljack and Bulkhead let Dreadwing up. Raveling up the barbed chains, Nightstalker fluttered her wings nervously as Dreadwing easily diffused the bomb for them. He glanced back once at her and left without a word more.

Nightstalker turned to Optimus and ducked her head dutifully. She knew she was in trouble. Again. Dear Primus, AGAIN. She needed to stop that. She had so many black marks, and if she wasn't careful, Optimus wasn't EVER going to trust her again.

He released a very tight vent. "Nightstalker—"

"Don't tell me you're gonna punish her," Wheeljack interjected with an incredulous laugh. "Dreadwing wasn't going to give in, Prime. You saw that."

Optimus's face barely so much as twitched. "I do not condone the use of torture," Optimus said steadily.

"Oh, so you don't condone my existence? Since I was MADE for torture."

Nightstalker cringed and regretted the words the instant they were out of her mouth. "Sorry . . ." she muttered, touching an elbow self-consciously. There was an awkward beat of silence until Bulkhead's heavy voice spoke up.

"That's what you did to Cliffjumper . . . or, part of it, at least . . ."

Her wings wilted. "Yeah," she mumbled. She looked down on her energon-blue-stained servos and plucked a couple wires from between her joints. "It's pretty sick. But it's what I do best."

Looking at the blood on her hands, Nightstalker felt an invisible hand seize her by the throat, choking her of all breath. Disgust flooded her wiring. Whirling from Optimus, Nightstalker raced to the waterside and dunked her servos in the water and SCRUBBED her hands, scrubbed and scrubbed until her hands were clean, but for some reason that wasn't enough. Frustrated lubricant beaded in her optics, and, clenching wings and jaw tightly, she hit the surface of the water, splashing water up against her.

_ That's all I'm good for, isn't it? Just sick, sick torture!_

She hadn't felt so disgusted with herself in a long time. She had just got herself on their good side and then she fragging ruined it! Nightstalker's claws gripped into tight fists. She had done nothing but fail when Cliffjumper and Arcee tried to teach her how to fight correctly, her forte wasn't even in the medical area, or hacking, or anything—!

Just torture.

_ Will I never escape my past?_

Faintly, Nightstalker realized that Wheeljack and Bulkhead were pleading her case some with the fact that none of them would be alive if it weren't for her—which Nightstalker was absolutely 100% certain of, Dreadwing would have never cracked—but Optimus's voice finally cut through the argument.

"I will speak with Nightstalker back at base."

Her wings fluttered nervously. She knew that tone all too well. Primus, she was probably fit for the scrap heap in Optimus's eyes now . . . First she tortures Cliffjumper, then she tries to kill Optimus, and now she disobeyed his order and tortured someone right in front of him . . .

_ Guess I'll see you soon, Fli-Ni._

Nightstalker followed Optimus with her helm tucked low as he brought her to the back of the silo where he could grill her without interruption. When he stopped and turned around, facing her with legs akimbo and arms crossed, blue optics drilling into her, Nightstalker knew he was daring her to give an explanation.

Taking a deep breath, she dared.

"Dreadwing wasn't going to give in," she rushed out. "I've tortured his type too many times before, Optimus, I KNOW he wasn't going to give in. Remember? Bumblebee killed his brother Skyquake? Dreadwing's suffering spark break, so trust me when I say he'd rather die than keep going, so you would just essentially would be putting him out of his misery. And then he'd get the glory of taking down both Bulkhead and Wheeljack AND you and me all in one go, so he'd be perfectly fine with being an honored Decepticon martyr since honor is everything to him, clearly, and . . . and . . ."

Stumbling to a halt, Nightstalker bit her lip and ducked her head again. After an intensely long moment, Optimus finally stated, "I do not condone torture on any level, Nightstalker." She flinched instinctively. "And do not tell me that you were made to torture, you chose when you were younger to take up the art of torture."

Nightstalker cringed at the low blow, wings flopping flat. There was a beat of silence as Optimus considered the options, and finally, he said, "But I cannot turn a blind optic to the fact that without your aid, we may or may not have made it out of that predicament alive. However, you broke protocol." Nightstalker tensed, waiting for the punishment.

"I am willing to . . . _forget _this incident happened if you would be willing to tell me where you have been sneaking off to in the dead of night."

Nightstalker's head jerked up, and her optics widened as round as saucers before she was able to control her facial expressions again, and she denied, "I've just been having some nightly flights, you know I like the night," but the damage had already been done. The Prime's optics narrowed, and he took a dangerous step forward. Nightstalker shrank when he towered over her.

"Nightstalker," Optimus said lowly, "I highly suggest you tell the truth. You tread on thin ice as it is."

Nightstalker felt her spinal strut suddenly straighten as she was tired of being intimidated by Optimus. He loomed over her predatorial, his fingers twitching, his optics blazing a bit too bright, and the heat of anger practically wafting from his body. When she hesitated in her answer, one of his servos snapped to her shoulder and dragged her in close. Nightstalker's spark jumped—he wasn't really going to be violent, was he? Before she had a chance to see what Orion had in store for her, she blurted out, "Fine! I'm fragging Megatron!"

Optimus jolted back like he had been burned. His servo leapt from her shoulder, and any arousal he had gathered through his heated anger turned cold as ice in shock, as if he hadn't heard her right. Nightstalker fluttered her wings nervously.

" . . . You what?"

Nightstalker shivered at the steely cold cut of his voice.

_ Oh Primus, save me a spot next to you, I wasn't really all that bad, was I? Oh, frag, I was, I'm sorry . . . Frag, I'm going to the Pit . . ._

"I—" This time, Nightstalker stumbled over her words, glossia clotting anxiously. "I—I'm f-frag—I'm—" Shaking violently, Nightstalker shrank backwards. She didn't have the cogs to say it again.

His optics darkened. Nightstalker felt her knees wobble. "You are fragging Megatron again," Optimus growled. Nightstalker backed away instinctively at his lethal tone, even more shocked at the curse Optimus used. Optimus NEVER cursed. EVER.

"Nightstalker, in the VERY least, that is worth a court marshal and expulsion from the Autobot army."

Nightstalker felt the world's air pressure suddenly drop, and a sudden sick feeling clenched her energon tanks. Please, that was the LEAST he could do to her. Primus, he could easily have her terminated! A woozy spell took her before she righted her equilibrium.

"So why don't you just kill me?" she muttered bitterly. "Seems I've caused enough trouble and this Autobot thing isn't working out for me. It'd save you a lot of hassle in the long run."

There was a tense beat of silence before a heavy sigh decompressed from Optimus. "Nightstalker," he said with more strained patience than before, "don't say that." There was a pause. "WHY?"

Nightstalker clenched her servos. Her orange optics glittered up at him. "Because when he frags me I can see Megatronus in him!"

Optimus recoiled as if struck. He even staggered back a step. His spark thundered painfully in his chassis. He peeled his glossia from the roof of his mouth.

"Megatronus?"

Optimus's fingers twitched. For him, it was a mixture of emotion as he looked down on this sultry femme before him. Shock, mainly. Secondly, an unnerving amount of restraint for the lust overcoming him by the moment. Orion's fingers twitched every time his optics caught sight of the bare protoform of her thighs. Anger. Pure, white hot anger every time he looked at her for what she had done, what she put him through without even knowing it, and the audacity she had to tell him this. Orion and the Prime warred back and forth on everything, but one feeling was universal.

JEALOUSY.

Their sparks raged against the inside of his chassis. She would frag MEGATRON over him? He was Prime! He was better than that wretched silver beast! MEGATRONOUS? His best friend! His optics were blazing almost white, and Nightstalker was twitching in a combination of fear and wonder at his violent emotions.

_ Go on. Take her. You know you want it._

A tight vent escaped his body. No, no he didn't—

_ Don't even try to lie about it now! You want her! Look at her! Primus, that black all over does wicked things to those curves . . . Just take her. Ravage her. Prove that you're better than Megatron AND Megatronus. Primus, ram that spike in her and make her scream our name, not his!_

Optimus's optics darkened another shade, this time into an eerily familiar shade; only, it was blue . . . not red.

Nightstalker had just enough time to widen her optics before Optimus seized her and kissed her—HARD.

_ OH FRAG—!_

Nightstalker tried to squirm away, but only succeeded in having the Prime's arm pin her down more firmly against his body, and oh Primus, why hadn't she realized that heat was arousal, not anger! She wilted against him, slumping almost limp as he ravished her mouth hungrily, fingers digging grooves into her back. Oh Primus, it WAS anger, oh Primus, anger and arousal and fucking hot . . . !

Nightstalker twitched, coming back to her senses with a muffled gasp. Squirming her hands up, Nightstalker pressed against Optimus's broad shoulders._ Let go! Let me go! Let me go—!_

All thought was wiped from her mind when she heard Optimus groan lowly and drag his teeth that caught bottom lip between them. A shiver chased down her spinal strut, and Nightstalker felt herself warming in unmentionable regions . . .

_ Oh Primus, I'm getting seduced by Optimus Prime. Oh, slaggit that sounded hot, fucking ravished by Optimus Prime, oh Primus that's hot . . ._

Her spark sputtered a mile a minute in her chassis, and she felt her servos sliding up to grasp at those deliciously ornament audio receptors, and Optimus moaned at the touch, hot spots reacting almost violently. Hot breath seared her used lips before he devoured her again, servo dipping lower to her waist—dangerously lower. Nightstalker whimpered when Optimus suckled her lips and that hand gripped at the bare protoform of her thigh. A sultry moan slid past Optimus's lips when he finally got that supple thigh in his hand. Nightstalker trembled.

_ Oh Primus, WHY is it so hot when those with the most control just snap and lose it! Oh Primus, ngh . . . Frag, oh frag, Megatron never kissed me like this—! _Optimus ruined her thought pattern when his glossia demanded entrance to her mouth, and Nightstalker all too willingly allowed him to. Optimus's servo slid up her silky smooth thigh before his hungry fingers dug beneath her armor, playing with the latches to strip her.

_ Oh scrap, I'm already wet, fuck humans have the best explicatives—ah, ah, SHIT he can just cream me with his lips alone—!_

Nightstalker quivered in his arms, and he finally let her catch a desperate breath when his mouth moved from her lips to her exposed neck cables. A tiny little moan escaped Nightstalker when Optimus's ragged gasp caught a cable in his mouth, between his teeth, and he suckled there, glossia playing with her most exquisitely.

Nightstalker panted, barely able to breathe. "Oh, FRAG, Optimus—oh frag, Optimus—Primus—right there—!" A tiny mewl escaped her vocals. "Optimus, frag me! Fraggit, please!"

He hissed, pulling on that neck cable almost painfully, and he hesitated for a half instant.

With a wild cry, Optimus threw her down. Nightstalker tumbled on her back, lust racing in her systems as she sprawled on her back. The Prime groaned audibly, shaking as he turned his optics away from the lusty sight of her sprawled out on her back, Primus, how easy it would be—!

The guilt festered as quickly as the desire had come. Shaking, the Prime bolted from the room, unable to even admit or explain to Nightstalker what had just happened. Nightstalker sat on the ground, optics wide, trying to understand that Optimus had just about took and fragged her, and she sat there, twitching with the urge to finish herself off or go find Megatron with an emergency for his eager spike, or just sit and let it all fade away.


	33. A Mistake

**Author's Note:  
><strong>

**Just dropping a short line that I want to thank you guys for your support and reviews and favs :) Too bad we won't have any more sexy Optimus moments, I don't think... :O That last chapter was hot!**

* * *

><p><em>Oh fraaaaaag I'm an idiot, oh frag, why did I do that—!<em>

Nightstalker paced wildly back and forth in her berth room, wringing her servos and fluttering her wings like mad.

_How in PIT did I manage to screw things up so bad? Oh, that's right, I tortured Dreadwing. And then practically raped Optimus!_

Nightstalker groaned heavily, and she pressed her palms to her forehead. Her shoulders hunched.

_Aw, frag me flying, who am I kidding? That was hot. No! I'm not supposed to think that. I fragging go from thinking about him like a father to wanting to FRAG him?_

She snarled again and began her restless pace around her berth room. At this rate, she was going to wear a hole through the floor.

_That bot fragging son of a Cessna! HE was the one that kissed ME!_

The sudden clarity of that thought made her wings perk aggressively with anger, and then, as quick as it had come, the anger deflated.

_Shit, it's the black isn't it? Even Cliffjumper said it was sexy. Oh, lugnuts, it's the protoform isn't it? _Prickles of heat chased up the bare protoform of her thighs at the mere thought of Optimus's hand taking her like he owned her. _Oh frag, it is, isn't it!_ She groaned audibly again, shaking her fists at the vain red medic on the _NEMESIS._

_ I knew better than to let Knockout talk me into that!_

Nightstalker strode back and forth around her room, worry eating away her insides as she warred back and forth at the thought of how sexy Optimus had been and how much she wanted him, and how wrong she knew it was and how it completely skewed her look of him as a father figure.

_Slag those wet dreams and Optimus's kissing and my horny attitude and Primus else in between!_

Still, Optimus's steamy kiss invaded her processor again and she briefly wondered if Optimus was full mech or carrier mech. Primus, he had to be full mech, all dominant spike . . . but like Pit it would be hot if he was carrier mech . . . She'd never had a mech with a spike and a valve before. Against her will, her thoughts turned randy again, and she felt herself warm.

_Primus slag me to Pit! I have GOT to stop that!_

Just then, Nightstalker felt a ring in her communications. Blinking, she answered the call.

"Yes?"

There was a pause. _"Nightstalker, please meet me in the training room."_

Nightstalker froze. After inwardly panicking for several seconds on what Optimus could want, she calmed herself down because he hadn't asked her to join him in his berth room. Ooh, Primus—

"Can I have five minutes?" she blurted.

There was another pause. _"Of course," _he stated. _"I'll be waiting."_

Nightstalker cut the transmission and groaned, unwilling arousal spreading through her systems.

_Dear Primus! He's NOT calling me back there to frag me! Aw, shit, shit, frag me flying, shit—!_

Bursting from her berth room doors, Nightstalker fled down the hallway and to the showers. She turned each one on blasting cold, and she yelped.

_Holy fragging PIT that's cold!_

Nightstalker gasped and trembled under the freezing cold water, but she didn't turn it off. The shock of that icy water snapped her out of her hot daydreams and drowned any wet valve feelings with a douse of cold that showered her down.

She stayed in there until she was literally shaking with cold before she turned off the water. She stood dripping wet a moment before drying off and hurrying to the back where she said she would meet Optimus, core temperatures still trying to get her warm enough to be regular again.

She stopped just before she entered the training room. Taking a steadying breath, Nightstalker willed her rapidly beating spark not to fuss and relax. Fluttering her wings nervously, Nightstalker walked into the room.

She found Optimus facing a wall, hands gripping his hips and helm tilted down with troubled thoughts. He quite literally jumped a little when he heard her peds before he calmed and turned. Heavy blue optics blinked, weighted down with conflicting emotions.

They stood. After an awkward moment, Nightstalker finally managed, "Yes?" The word cracked nervously from her throat.

Her word loosened his vocals immediately. "Nightstalker—"

"I'm sorry!" she burst, cutting him off. A blush of heat covered her cheeks, and she shook her head. "S-Sorry for practically—I mean, I pretty much just made it worse—egged it on—"

"Nightstalker, stop."

Her mouth gawked like a fish for a second before she closed it. Optimus vented heavily and lifted a servo to pinch his brow.

Finally, he said, "It is not your fault. Nightstalker, _I_ am the one who is sorry. My behavior—was inexcusable. Please, forgive me for overstepping my boundaries."

Nightstalker paused before saying, "Okay, forgiven, but . . . Can you tell me where that came from? I . . . just didn't expect it coming from a mech like you."

She heard something hitch in his systems. He rocked back on his heels with a troubled grumble before admitting so quietly she thought she had imagined it, "You are a beautiful femme."

Nightstalker paused again. Slowly opening and closing her wings, she contemplated his words. "More than beautiful?"

His hands clenched into fists. "Irresistible," he rasped.

Another touch of heat singed her cheeks. Great. Good Primus, she should have realized after that last stunt—Primus, how long had it been that he had been fighting that . . . ?

"Can I help?" When Optimus lifted his head with wide optics, incredulous, she blushed brightly. "N-Not like that!" she stuttered to ease his worry. She waved her hands in a negative. "I—I mean, is it the black? Or should I change my armor? You know, cover up more—"

"Nightstalker," Optimus's pained voice interrupted, "you do not need to change the way you are to accommodate for me."

Nightstalker fanned her wings nervously and ducked her head. "W-Well, if it would help . . ."

There was a slow lag in the conversation until Optimus finally said, "Nightstalker, I do not think it would help enough to be of true consideration. Do not worry about your physical appearance. It—It is just—I—" Optimus struggled for his words, uncanny for him. He was trying to explain to her his hidden desire NOT to be Prime, the loneliness, his lust, his mindset about it, the Matrix—but it all choked in his throat, stuck there.

Nightstalker shifted. It hadn't occurred to her, but . . . "Optimus, would it help if we did just have a quickie?"

"NO!" The vehement jump of his denial startled her, and she winced back instinctively. A tremble passed through Optimus, and he pressed a servo to his face. "Nightstalker," he started in with a strained voice, "I—I am afraid that if we did that . . . that I would not be able to be satisfied with just one."

Nightstalker nodded vigorously, letting him know she understood, but Primus he looked so low! She had never seen someone so ashamed of himself before . . .

Nightstalker waved him off easily, trying to soothe his wired nerves, and she said, "All right. But seriously, Optimus, if there's anything I can do, just tell me. I mean—even if it's just that I need to step out of a room for a second, or if I do something that sets it off—just anything. I want to help."

Something about Optimus deflated, but he seemed relieved and tired. "Thank you," he finally said quietly.

They stood there a moment longer, and when Optimus failed to say anything, Nightstalker added, "Optimus . . ."

"Yes?"

She swallowed. "About Megatron . . ."

He looked up at her then, the first eye contact they had made during the entire conversation. There was a pause, and Optimus vented sharply, putting his servos on his hips.

"Nightstalker," he started in gravely, "are you . . . ABSOLUTELY sure that you . . . can see . . . Megatronus?"

Nightstalker nodded. "I swear. He—he's different when it's just me and him. He laughs. He holds me. He's not the same Megatron."

A heavy grumble passed through Optimus. Worried, he told her seriously, "Nightstalker, Megatron is . . . not so easily changed. I am afraid that . . . he could be deceiving you. There is no guarantee that he will not hurt you, or that he may turn against you. The Decepticons keep their namesake for a reason." His spark hurt. How long had it been since he had heard his friend laugh with happiness . . . ?

Nightstalker nodded firmly. "Optimus, I'm absolutely sure of what I see in him."

Though a part of him still quivered with worry and fear, Optimus heard himself saying, "Then I will turn a blind eye to these nightly excursions. So long as you can find my brother."

* * *

><p>"Bulkhead? This is ridiculous. Put me down."<p>

He sputtered. "B-But that's just not right! Doesn't this hurt?"

Nightstalker arched a brow. "Not particularly . . ." She crossed her arms so they weren't hanging awkwardly, and arched a brow. "It's more awkward than anything. Can you put me down?"

Currently, Nightstalker was hanging upside down by one foot, Bulkhead holding her up by that one foot. Her legs were spread in an almost vertical stretch, one stretched all the way up and one stretched all the way down in a split, completely comfortable for herself, but for Bulkhead? He was just trying to wrap his processor around it.

"Seriously, Nightstalker, are you SURE you're supposed to be able to move like that? I thought only humans could move like that."

As he sat her down carefully, Nightstalker shrugged and cocked her head. "I can get absolutely vertical when I'm just in my protoform. The armor restricts my movement, really."

Bulkhead wrinkled his brows, saying, "Now that I don't wanna see."

"I wouldn't show you anyways."

A hot blush of energon scorched his cheeks, and as he quickly blurted, "No! No, not like that! I just—I mean—" and finally he managed, "Autobots just don't naturally bend like humans! That's all!"

Nightstalker laughed, really just bemused with the easily frazzled mech. "Easy, Bulk," she teased him with a grin. "Wouldn't want to go frying vital circuits, would we?" and she tapped her helm and arched a brow at him.

Bulkhead laughed then, waving her off as he said, "Nah, trust me, I learned that the hard way! Never in my life will _I_ touch synthetic energon!"

Nightstalker was about to crack another joke, which is all they had really been doing for the past half hour before Ratchet butted in with, "Would you both PLEASE be quiet or just go away and do something useful with yourselves!"

Nightstalker shrugged at the irked medical bot and said lightly, "Hey, Miko's in detention, Jack is at work, and Raf is doing homework like a good kid. Heard he's got a paper to work on . . . Beside the point, me and Bulkhead are just goofing off some."

Bulkhead smiled and waved his servos. "Aw, shucks, Ratchet's right, Nights. Why don't we go to the back and try to teach you how to fight again?"

"Again?" Nightstalker groaned. "But Bulkhead, I SUCK at fighting!"

He grinned, optics twinkling. "Now see? That's why you need practice!"

Nightstalker dropped her helm in her hands. "I would do anything, literally ANYTHING not to go and fail again."

Eerily prompt, the shrill beeping sounded through the silo. Bulkhead arched a brow at her before shaking his head with a grin. "What is it?" Bulkhead asked, coming up behind Ratchet.

Nightstalker tagged along, head cocked as Ratchet answered, "A high frequency signal with an embedded message." The skeptical tone of his voice was clear.

"Again?"

Ratchet gave a curt nod and narrowed his optics. "Starscream. 'I have obtained information of extreme interest to you. Bring medical kit.'"

Nightstalker arched a brow at the medical bot, and he grumbled under his breath before saying, "Nightstalker, you stay here. Keep the bridge open. We'll be right back, I have no doubt."

Nightstalker watched as they filed out, Bulkhead first, blasters drawn already. She waited idly by the ground bridge, wondering what else Starscream could pull out of his afterburner—whatever it was, it was sure to be interesting. Arcee and Bumblebee showed up soon after, each looking curiously at Nightstalker by the bridge. She shrugged.

Of course, she wasn't shrugging when Starscream reported losing his T-Cog to M.E.C.H and that Airachnid was rogue and commanding an Insecticon. Like the others, she had assumed that the Insecticons were still only on Cybertron. In her time as a Decepticon, she hadn't heard anything about a fleet of Insecticons being jettisoned from Cybertron—or any drones for that matter. To add insult to injury, the coordinates Starscream provided were in a Decepticon mine, where he claimed he had been attacked. Ratchet attested to the injury he had repaired. And, since Cliffjumper still wasn't back from an energon scouting mission—who knows what had distracted him since he was supposed to be back when Arcee and Bumblebee had returned—Nightstalker got to go with the team out to confront this Insecticon.

In truth, as they descended into the dark mine, made even darker by a stormy night, she didn't know why Optimus had wanted her with them until Bumblebee pinged her privately that it was her electrical whips. If the Insecticon was full grown like they prepared for, it would be a formidable opponent to make even Optimus struggle beneath its might. However, her electrical whips wouldn't care how thick the armor of the Insecticon was—if she got the tips of her whips into the briefest gap in armor, it would shock that Insecticon to the core. The shocks of electricity could penetrate even the most impregnable armor there was of any caliber.

However, as Nightstalker wasn't prepared for a shrill and frustrated voice of her mentor screech, "FINISH HIM!" Nightstalker halted, spark thundering in her chassis. She wasn't ready for another confrontation with Airachnid, not after how easily she had pinned her down before—!

"Whoa," Bulkhead breathed, optics dilating wide. "Scream never mentioned Megatron!"

Megatron? Nightstalker snapped to the conversation immediately, ducking around Bumblebee for a clear view at the scrap unfolding below and—oh Primus, the energon! It was everywhere! Raking her optics over Megatron, she found several leaks, but the source of the one that worried her most was centered in the lower left of his neck, gushing bright blue energon at an alarming rate. One of the secondary energon lines near the primary energon line in his neck must have been severed in that blow. Nightstalker felt her knees go a little weak at the thought, and she grabbed hold of Bumblebee's back for balance. Not only did he have to be in intense pain, but if this battle drew out too long, Megatron would merely bleed himself dry.

"Arcee, no!"

Nightstalker jumped three feet out of her protoform at Optimus's shout, but of course, Arcee had spotted Airachnid and was already charging her at full throttle. Nightstalker felt her energon tanks churn. Yes, Arcee could go take care of Airachnid, she would just sit here and let her take care of that, keep her from having to deal with it. Instead, Nightstalker's orange optics drew back to Megatron, and she felt the world slow a little as she watched him battle.

By Primus he was . . . magnificent. For the first time in her life since Kaon, Nightstalker watched Megatron battle, a sneer of absolute hatred curving those devastating lips and baring teeth. Each blow was filled with raging might, and his wicked blade flashed in the murky darkness of the cave. She felt the crashes rattle in her backs struts, and his movements were like a deadly dance, fatal to his opponent, and she remembered: Fli-Ni next to her as they crouched in the illegal gladiator pits to watch their hero battle, remembering the roar echoing faint in her audio receptors of, _"No one defeats Megatronus!"_

His broad shoulders shifted, menacing in their sudden change in aggression, and Nightstalker knew with one look that he was moving in for the kill. His lunge was deep, and with a feint, had slighted his blade away and gave a wicked round-house kick under Insecticon's jaw. While the beast tried to get back up, stunned, Megatron's optics immediately honed in to where Arcee had run off Airachnid, searching for his foe. His optics swept the area, and Nightstalker blinked as they suddenly settled on the Autobot troop and then, zeroed in on her.

"So many surprises today!"

What that meant, Nightstalker couldn't be certain. However, she tensed for the attack as the Insecticon pounced from behind, but Megatron easily fell back into the fray, ducking under the bug's attack and grabbing its extra appendages. With a dangerous snarl, Megatron kicked the Insecticon right in the chest, ripping off those limbs and making the fiend shriek. Megatron threw the sparking ends down, body form so aggressive and furious that Nightstalker couldn't help but find it delicious. He rushed forward, and with a last and mighty roar, decapitated the full-grown beast.

The body fell to the ground with a crash. In the sudden silence, Megatron's labored breaths were easy to hear, and he spread his arms instinctively, proclaiming,

"Let that be a warning to anyone who dares to cross a gladiator of Kaon! Be they Decepticon—" Nightstalker dumbly followed the group down as they all confronted the weakened Megatron, guns drawn. Nightstalker didn't pull hers, spark fluttering in fear. Megatron glared at them all. "—Or Autobot."

Nightstalker blinked, energon tanks churning as Megatron's first step towards them was without his blade drawn; his knees gave a deceptive creak. The second step was no good—Nightstalker felt her spark jump in amazed horror as the Decepticon leader pitched heavily to a knee and collapsed completely.

His arms shook as he pushed against the ground. "It seems I am unarmed and at your mercy," Megatron said, a touch of irony in his voice. He looked up, glaring defiant daggers into the Prime's optics. "So tell me, Optimus, do you intend to take me alive? Or, end this here and now?"

Nightstalker looked wildly to Optimus who stood indomitably in front of Megatron. Neither his blasters nor his blades were drawn, but his optics were shielded.

The Prime was weighing his options. There was no way they could take Megatron captive—that was a fact. They did not have the means to keep him restrained. This was his chance—one blow was all it would take to end the war for good. But Megatron was far from admitting defeat—his cold, red optics smirked inwardly with the belief that the Prime wouldn't do it—couldn't. Never had. And wouldn't now. With a rare urge of aggression, Optimus WANTED to pull the trigger. He wanted Megatron to see how wrong he was and that he was no one's glitch. After all he had done, the Prime wanted him to die with a stupid look of astonishment that he had the cogs to do what he should have done long ago.

Yet, he was conflicted with the thought of Megatronus. Not only had Nightstalker positively proclaiming that she could see Megatronus in Megatron shaken him, but seeing Megatron battling below had stirred old memories—ones the Prime had tried to bury for millennia. He wanted to give Megatron another chance in the hopes he could find his good friend Megatronus, but where had that led him before? Again and again he had fallen for it, make-believing that Megatron could possibly hold a shred of his true self. For that, Optimus had lost countless soldiers, countless battles, kept this forsaken war alive for millennia.

His spark pained. He had to end it now. For all they had lost. Killing this part of himself was a sacrifice he had to make—Orion fought wildly, but the Prime transformed his ion cannon and leveled the muzzle to Megatron's helm. The Decepticon leader narrowed his optics, assessing this and studying his foe, gauging him. Nightstalker may think she could see a part of Megatronus still in him, but was it true? He couldn't wait long enough to find out. They had to end this.

Nightstalker's spark hit her stomach when Optimus suddenly aimed at Megatron. He was planning to kill him? But—She had—She thought—Hadn't he wanted her to bring back Megatronus? Did he have that little of faith? As the ion cannon whined with the charge of an attack, Nightstalker's peds moved her forward, and she jumped in front of Megatron, spreading her arms.

"Don't!"

Both Bumblebee and Bulkhead burst, "Nights?" in a chorus, but Optimus just blinked, optics whirring slightly. They were waiting for an explanation—Optimus knew it; or, he thought he knew it. She hadn't told them she owed her life to Megatron for allowing her to survive Kaon. She owed him this. She had to—had to . . . She felt her knees go weak as Optimus didn't remove the weapon, something cold in his optics.

"I—I—"

Her words failed her. Hadn't Optimus said he would never terminate a defenseless opponent? Didn't even Megatron fall under that rule? It did for Airachnid—he had said it so today to Arcee. Did he break his word that easy? Megatron was so close she could feel his heavy breaths on the back of her leg.

When she failed to summon an explanation, Optimus stated evenly, "Nightstalker, step aside—"

A crash sounded from above. Nightstalker shrieked, ducking and covering her head from the fall of rocks as all the Autobot blasters pointed upwards to the crumbling ceiling. Laser fire exploded from above, and while Nightstalker cowered down, almost pushing into Megatron for protection, he looked up, unflinching.

"The surprises never cease," he murmured. Vehicons fell on either side of the Autobots, forcing Optimus to widen his stance and, while keeping his blaster at Megatron, point the other to the Vehicon at his back. Nightstalker looked up, blinking at Dreadwing who lugged his heavy cannon and pointed it at Optimus. Her spark fluttered.

_Oh scrap._

Nightstalker backed off to the side, none of her weapons equipped, and really, no one spared her a glance now, even the Decepticons.

Dreadwing didn't so much as flinch at the sight of Nightstalker this time. "Deliver Megatron to us," he said flatly to Optimus, "and I will allow you to live."

"Never trust a 'Con!" Bulkhead growled verbally. "Kick Buckethead's bucket!"

Optimus narrowed his optics at Megatron before looking up. "Dreadwing, do I have your word?"

There was a tense stretch of silence in which Dreadwing's optics narrowed at Optimus as he considered his very few options. As he weighed those options, Nightstalker looked around, noting the Vehicons posted high that she had missed before. She could hear Bumblebee's optics whir in the silence before finally, Dreadwing put away his weapon, anchoring it on his back in submission.

Optimus hesitated a moment, but then withdrew his ion cannons.

Nightstalker let out a breath she hadn't known she had been holding. Bumblebee and Bulkhead moved back to Optimus's side as Dreadwing came forward and supported Megatron. Nightstalker shuffled to the Autobot side.

"Dreadwing may have given his word," Megatron snarled, "but I did not! Destroy them!"

Nightstalker shrieked when blaster fire erupted all around her, and she cowered back. Megatron and Dreadwing took off, and before she knew it, Nightstalker had transformed and chased after them. Optimus's shout followed her, but he was pinned with his soldiers.

The wind screamed in her face. Nightstalker followed them, calling out, "Megatron, wait!" He slowed, allowing her to catch up while Dreadwing fell back, keeping her in his sights. After a moment, realizing she either had too much to say or nothing, Nightstalker broke away from them and coasted down.

She landed in the trees, spark sputtering irregularly. Did that count? Was she debt free? No, no Dreadwing had interfered. That was like half-assing her debt payment. She—

Deep engines rattled the air. Nightstalker gasped and jerked around, Dreadwing landing directly in front of her. Her orange optics widened, and she backed away several steps, fingers twitching with the urge to find something to protect herself with.

_Oh Primus, he's going to gut me and rip me to pieces for torturing him . . ._

She couldn't imagine what the great seeker was going to do, but as he took very, VERY deliberate steps towards her, Nightstalker whipped out her blade, brandishing it at him.

"Stay back!" she squeaked with failed bravado. "I—I'm not afraid to use this!"

He didn't even flinch, but instead grabbed her hand with blinding speed and bent it backwards. Nightstalker gasped, dropping her weapon, and she looked up at him, orange optics bugging huge.

He narrowed solid red optics at her. After a tense beat of silence, he finally started to say, "You're . . . name is . . ." Then, his lips slanted in a fierce frown. "You're mother's name . . . is Ampere?"

Nightstalker's jaw dropped. "You knew my mom?"

Dreadwing started to say something, and then stopped. If possible, his glower darkened even more, and he scowled, slinging her away so hard she stumbled backwards and fell on her aft. He turned sharply on his heel and took off without a second glance at her.

Nightstalker jumped to her feet. "Wait!" she cried. "You knew my mom! Come back!"

But he was gone. Nightstalker looked blankly at the sky, wishing with all her might that he would come back and straighten some things out, or at least say how he knew her mom, or—or—just something! Nightstalker jumped three feet out of her protoform when her communications crackled to life.

_"Nightstalker," _Optimus said, _"Arcee is in need of an assist."_

Finding her coordinates was easy. "I'm on it," she said back, taking off and making a quick and easy flight to Arcee. Nightstalker had to blink at the femme caught completely in Airachnid's web. Arcee narrowed her optics.

"Don't even ask what happened," she muttered. "I'd rather not tell it more than once."

Nightstalker gave a vague shrug and too out her blade to cut her free. When she failed to say anything, Arcee added, "What's wrong with you? You act like you've seen a ghost."

She gave another vague shrug. "Knowing me," she finally muttered, "I might have."


	34. A Debt Repaid

Blindsided by Optimus.

That was always good.

Ha! Arcee even had the grill marks to prove it, so there wasn't any arguing with her. But seriously, Optimus? Nightstalker couldn't believe it.

And, oh hell, look, he's driving in. So everyone tiptoed up. Except Nightstalker of course. She was a coward, they all knew it. She knew it. So she cowered behind the humans. Like a coward. Jack stood with squared shoulders and even Miko did, Raf stood taller than she did. She was all hunched over herself.

Optimus transformed up, and Nightstalker winced. It wasn't like he was attacking! He was Optimus! There was no way—Well, obviously there had to be a way. But she didn't know what it was but could only believe Optimus had a good reason. Maybe there was an incoming missile. Maybe he secretly saved Arcee's life. After all, she'd only seen the sweetest and most compassionate from Optimus, even when he was punishing her. Well, he got mean when he was punishing, but hey, he always did what was best for her—

His blue optics swept over them all once. "Is something wrong?"

Oh, you deduced that in one look? Kinda obvious, since we're all on edge! Nightstalker's sarcastic thoughts were getting on her own nerves. He probably wanted them to tell him what was wrong. But how can you tell him he just blindsided Arcee earlier that night? Wouldn't he know, lying glitch he was? Optimus Prime and lie—ha! They didn't belong in the same sentence!

"We were just—" Arcee started to offer before she choked off; she looked helplessly to Bulkhead before managing, "—wondering where you've been."

Bulkhead added warily, "We haven't been able to reach you."

Optimus blinked at them, assessing the tension carefully. "I have been outside of our communications range," he started to say, and he reached behind him.

Everyone reacted at once. Weapons were drawn; Nightstalker dropped both arms in front of the kids and pulled them all close, ready to protect them with her body.

Optimus froze, holding up a hand to hold them off before he continued, "In a subterranean energon deposit." He showed them the chunk of raw energon he had pulled from his subspace as evidence of the fact.

The tension crackled. Jack pushed out of Nightstalker's arms. "C'mon, it's our guy! Can't you tell?"

A long, strained beat of silence. Nightstalker let go of the kids and straightened up, seeing Optimus's worried optics—assertive, judging if he was going to get blasted by his own teammates, but mostly that slightly caved-in chest body language with the hunched shoulders, making himself look smaller and less threatening, and his spread hands in the front and in plain sight, showing that he wasn't going to pull anything funny.

Finally, they dropped their weapons.

It was easily deduced as M.E.C.H. being the ones behind the Nemesis Prime. And even if they had duplicated Optimus, they still couldn't ground bridge, so they were within driving distance of the incident of Arcee and incident of an attack on a military base. And so the gang headed out—Cliffjumper yipping and gung-ho, of course. When Nightstalker was left behind this time, he just winked at her and poked out his glossia as he sauntered out.

Cocked up Autobot.

* * *

><p>"If I can isolate the control frequency of the remote link that Silas is employing," Ratchet was saying, "I should be able to pinpoint his exact position."<p>

Ah, that certainly made better sense. After all—as Miko so generously demonstrated—one punch from Bulkhead and he was sure to have his head ringing.

"Aha!" Nightstalker jumped at Ratchet's sudden epiphany. "Frequency isolated!"

Fowler stepped forward. "Then reopen that bridge."

"Agent Fowler. Did you not hear Optimus's advisement against your involvement? It's for your own safety."

"Look, Doc," Fowler said. "I don't plan on dancing with any bots. But there's a human element in play here. And in case you haven't noticed I happen to be a highly trained, government grade HUMAN."

"Yeah!" Miko chimed in. "Plus Silas tried to run him off the road. It's personal."

When Ratchet narrowed his optics, Nightstalker felt empowered to add, "Look, if you're that worried about him, I can be his bodyguard."

Ratchet looked at her. Fowler whirled. "I don't need a bodyguard!" he protested.

Ratchet nodded. "Done. Nightstalker, you will watch over Agent Fowler."

At the look Fowler gave her, she had obviously hurt his man pride.

So Nightstalker hopped through the ground bridge with Agent Fowler into the dead of night, and she looked down on the human that was up to her thigh as he put a hand over his mouth.

"I think I'm gonna toss the breakfast I ate back in flight school."

The first thing they heard was a loud crash, and Nightstalker's head jerked up to see Optimus slam into a wall with a heavy grunt.

Well scrap. That sounded just perfect. Or was that the imposter?

Nightstalker didn't know. Fowler answered his cell phone to Ratchet, calmly listening to the instructions while Nightstalker fell into a panic-attack mode on the inside as she watched two Optimus Prime's duking it out.

"Copy that."

She jumped and followed Agent Fowler to the base due north, glancing back at Optimus fighting himself quite frequently as they traipsed on over to where they were supposed to go. Nightstalker backhanded a M.E.C.H. unit here and there, but mostly left it up to Fowler as the man seemed quite invigorated every time he punched and knocked someone out. However, when they got to the top of the center of M.E.C.H.'s base, Nightstalker looked down woefully on the human sized hole. There was no way she was fitting in there.

"Guess you're on your own from here," she said quietly to Fowler. Even if she folded her wings down as tight as they could go, it would still be a painful squeeze with chipping and scraping paint on metal.

"You go back up the big guy," Fowler said, and he began the descent into M.E.C.H.'s base. Nightstalker blinked at him and looked over her shoulder to where both Optimus's were climbing up one of the large cylinder-like rooms in the base. Her? Help HIM? She was like . . . half his size! What the frag was she supposed to do?

Transforming up, Nightstalker took to the skies and flew high above, contemplating what to do as she circled above them. First off, which was the real one? She couldn't tell. Second, what was she supposed to DO to a mech that size? What could she do? Fly down and swat at him? He'd knock her away like a fly! She flew a little lower as they pulled out their blades, and she waffled between which Optimus was the real Optimus when she heard Silas's voice talking, taunting the real one.

There. That was the imposter. Good job, Silas! Thanks for the tip on who the real Optimus was!

And then she could only watch as the Nemesis Prime slipped past Optimus's defenses and-HOLY PIT! Optimus cried out when the Nemesis Prime jabbed his blade into his chest, and Nightstalker felt her spark sputter to a stop. According to a human, that would have been a killing blow because the heart was centered slightly to the left. In a Cybertronian, the spark was directly center in the chest.

"But the key difference between you and me?" she heard Silas's voice faintly below. "My body can't feel PAIN!" He twisted the sword deeper, and Optimus cried out again, optics dilating tight as his hands gripped at the balde in his chest. Bright blue energon poured from the wound.

When SIlas yanked the blade from Optimus's chest, Optimus pitched to his knees, shaking hands clutching at his wound. "This is only the beginning," Sila said. "Imagine an army of transforming robots."

When he raised his arm for the killing blow, that was when Nightstalker realized she was being a complete and utter stupid aft that was just sitting there gawking as Optimus was about to die. Changing her course, Nightstalker drove down at top speed, spark pounding a mile a minute in her chassis.

"No one will stand against the newly rebooted M.E.C.H."

Transforming with a rather shrill cry, more afraid than actually boosted with confidence, Nightstalker whipped out her electrical whips and slammed them down across the Nemesis Prime's back. Optimus looked up with astonished optics to see her there, but Nightstalker was more focused on her foe that for some reason wasn't moving-which was perfectly fine with her. Slinging out both whips again, she caught the Nemesis around the neck and around his leading arm. When he still failed to have a response, she grew bolder and latched both whips around his leading arm, and she pulled with all her might to hold back his attacking arm.

By the time Silas made it back to his seat, it was too late. The electric shocks coursed through the machine's body, for the most part shorting out most of the circuits. Its response time lagged, but he still managed to bring his sword down to block a hit from Optimus as the Prime rose to his peds to help Nightstalker battle. Nightstalker gasped, yanked forward easily by the strength of the machine, and she lashed both whips out again on its back, shorting out more important circuits as Optimus lambasted into the front of his double with powerful punches. Double teamed, the Nemesis was easily taken down. Nightstalker leapt out of the way as Optimus brought down a mighty two handed strike. The ceiling they stood upon creaked and groaned, and Nightstalker yelped as the floor crumbled beneath them. Optimus's strides were longer, so he easily picked her up and jumped them both to the edge to safety.

Nightstalker gaped as the Nemesis fell on top of Silas. Well, good riddance. Agent Fowler stood to the side, gawking as well until Optimus asked, "Agent Fowler?"

Something wet was seeping against Nightstalker's side. Actually, drenching her. Oh scrap! Optimus's wound! She whirled in his arms.

"That would be our boys. I would adivse you get back to base, Prime. I'll handle Uncle Sam."

When Optimus started to get up, Nightstalker gripped his shoulder and pulled him back down. "Hey," was all she said as she pulled a couple spare clamps from her subspace. Even though the helicopters were getting closer, she had to make sure he didn't go bleeding himself dry on the way back to base. Optimus tensed and sucked in a breath when her fingers slipped inside the wound to put the clamps on the massively bleeding lines, but otherwise remained silent and did not give any other indication of the pain.

"Where's everyone else?" she asked. Optimus blinked, looking out vaguely over the M.E.C.H. base, and Nightstalker waved her hands. "Never mind. You get Ratchet to bridge you back to base, and I'll find the rest of them."

"Nightstalker," Optimus interrupted, "I don't think-"

"You're hurt," she said strictly, "and Ratchet would have a cow if you stayed out here. Besides that, you're big and easily spotted. I'm tiny and black and I'll blend right in. All right? I'll be careful, I promise." He blinked at her, and he finally nodded, taking her logic into consideration. She nodded back. "Can you get down?"

Then a small smile made it to his face. "I can manage," he told her.

So, they split up. Optimus bridged back to base while Nightstalker went collecting the others, waking up Bulkhead and Arcee and Bumblebee and Cliffjumper scaring the slag out of her when he woke up and jumped all over her with fingers tickling her and making her squeal and the humans rerouting their paths to them.

Needless to say, they high tailed it out of there really quick so the feds wouldn't find them.

* * *

><p>After losing contact with Bulkhead for quite some time, the bots began to get worried. They couldn't get in contact with him, couldn't confirm anything on his whereabouts. But, the only lead they had was a signal coming from where they had last encountered Megatron, Airachind, and her Insecticon.<p>

So, Nightstalker bridged out with Optimus, Bumblebee, Arcee, and Cliffjumper to go find out what they could.

What they hadn't bargained on was seeing a SWARM of Insecticons flying out and completely ignoring them. And, considering Airachnid's last encounter with Megatron, Optimus deduced this:

"We are in all likelihood witness the launch of a mission to terminate Megatron." Which, while it was kinda jumping to conclusions, it made sense. She tried to kill him with one Insecticon last time, so now she had somehow found and woke up a swarm. Nightstalker found herself agreeing with Optimus, but where was Airachnid?

"I can't think of a reason to stop that," Arcee said. "Even if we could."

Optimus stepped forward and glanced over the side. "But we can stop Airachnid."

Nightstalker gaped at the Insecticons disappearing into the distance as the Autobots pulled their weapons on Airachnid. This was it. Nightstalker knew of the assault coming Megatron's way, and she could warn him! She could save him! That would get her debt free from Kaon, right?

Nightstalker shrieked when the rear guard of Airachind's cronies flew about and open fired on them. Without a second thought, Nightstalker jumped up and transformed, shooting off in the direction of the Insecticons. Cliffjumper shouted below her, but she didn't heed him.

Nightstalker left behind the Autobots, gunning her little jet engines as fast as she could in the direction the Insecticons had gone. She might be small, but she was FAST. That was something even Megatron had complimented her on. Still, the Insecticons had gotten a head start on her, and they were far ahead. The_ NEMESIS_ drew into sight with a hoard of Insecticons attacking, open firing the moment they were in range.

Scrap.

The pandemonium that erupted was loud, destructive, and collossal. The _NEMESIS_ itself held up fine, but the stupid little Vehicon drones? Nah, they were scrap beneath the might of the Insecticons. Nightstalker coasted around the ship, wondering what in Pit she should do to help when if one of the Insecticons saw her they would crush her in an instant, but that was when she saw a silvery glint against a gray hull.

Megatron.

Nightstalker turned to him, watching him shoot down several Insecticons with unparalleled accuracy. She zoomed down towards him, intending to help him as well as she could, but the Insecticons were too many. They fell around him, caging him in, and Nightstalker felt her spark leap to her throat when one lifted its claws to attack. With a cry, Nightstalker threw herself down between the Insecticon and Megatron. Claws raked against her front, and everything went black.

* * *

><p>"Forgive us, our one true Lord and Master."<p>

Megatron surveyed the scene that had changed suddenly again. He smirked. "This day has certainly had its fair share of thwarted intentions."

And, it's fair share of surprises. Megatron turned, looking back down on the ground where Nightstalker lied, energon seeping from the grooves in her chest. Her again. She never failed to confuse him. First she's ever faithful to him, then she betrays him for Autobots, then she almost kills Optimus, then she shows her loyalty to the Decepticons again. She was a fickle and mysterious one, that was for sure. He could never quite tell what her intentions were.

Instead, Megatron decided yet again that she deserved her chance with the Decepticons. He picked her up and slung her unconscious body over his shoulder and headed inside the ship, pleased with the turn of events. He got the pleasure of killing Starscream multiple times over, he gained a massive and powerful new army, and he now had the one he was grooming to be his queen back in his grasp.

And then, the entire ship rocked and shuddered beneath his peds. Megatron staggered, and he whipped his head around to see smoke billowing up from the rear of his ship.

"NOW WHAT?"

Megatron stumbled his way inside with Nightstalker thrown over his shoulder, and he felt the _NEMESIS_ tip into a steep dive. What in the pits of Kaon was going on?

He staggered to the front of the ship and glared at the Vehicons there. "My liege!" the first reported. "Our power cord has been compromised."

The engines. He should have known. What had caused it though?

His grip on Nightstalker tightened. "Prepare for landing."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Um... Uh-oh? :O**


	35. Answers and More Questions

_"Knockout! Knockout, wake up!"_

_He rolled over and grumbled in irritation. One red optic slitted open to look at her. "What do you want?"_

_Her little lips quivered. "I had a bad dream. Airachnid told me to shut up and get back in stasis. But I'm scared."_

_Knockout groaned and rubbed his helm, amazed that she had sneaked this far across the ship past the drones on night watch just to come see him. Woke him up in the middle of the night just because she was scared . . ._

_"Nightstalker, it's the middle of the night."_

_ "I know! But I'm scared . . ."_

_ "And what do you expect me to do?"_

_ She looked up with big orange optics. "Can I recharge with you?"_

_ Knockout's optics widened at the pitiful hope there. "Uh-uh," he said, shaking his head. "Not a chance. This paint job isn't going to get ruined by your squirming all night."_

_ "I won't squirm," the little femme said, wingtips fanning a little. "I'll stay perfectly still, I promise."_

_ Knockout groaned again, flopping his face back into his berth. "Look, what was honestly so bad that you can't just go back to sleep?"_

_ Nightstalker's tiny peds shuffled. "Well . . . I don't know . . ."_

_ "You don't even know what you dreamed about? Seriously?"_

_ "Well—!" Her little lips puckered up, and she stamped her foot in a typical sparkling fit. "I can't really remember! It was just dark, and I was alone, and I heard Fli-Ni screaming for help . . . I couldn't find him . . . Some other stuff . . . It was dark."_

_ Knockout's spark deflated, and he felt the stress emanating from the tiny sparkling. Oh no. He wasn't falling for those big orange optics again. He didn't care what it was, she might promise not to move in the night, but she always squirmed and shifted and tossed back and forth like a rabid little bot. And his paint job would take the punishment._

_ But, he could feel her unrest through his spark, and whether he liked it or not, that worry melted his spark every time and he couldn't do a thing in Pit to stop it._

I knew I shouldn't have saved that little sparkling, I knew it . . .

_Instead, he rolled his optics and flopped onto his stomach. "Fine."_

_ Nightstalker squealed happily and clambered into his berth with him, and he set his jaw, refraining from sharp words as she squirmed into a comfortable position, paint chaffing against his. She cuddled up beneath his armpit before she settled down, snuggling as close to him as possible._

_ "Thanks, Knockout."_

* * *

><p>His half mumbled "welcome" died in her audio receptors and was replaced with something else. What was he saying? What was that? What's up? Why was he saying what's up? No, not that . . . Wa—Wait . . . Wake up?<p>

"Nightstalker! Wake up!"

Oh yes, that made better sense. She was in a heavy recharge, she could feel it now. And . . . Wait. Wake up? Oh! Wake UP!

Nightstalker opened her optics to a face she hadn't seen in a long time. She blinked, and he backed off with a gruff clearing of his throat.

"Took you long enough. Primus, first I could never get you sleep, and now I can never get you up . . ."

Nightstalker smiled. "Knockout!" She sat up, faint annoyances of pain still in her chest, but for the most part, the Insecticon's attack on her had been healed up. "Wait-Megatron!"

Knockout waved an unimpressed hand. "Yeah, he's fine . . ." He returned with a flashlight. "Follow the light."

Nightstalker sputtered as he pointed the shining light in her face. She swatted it away. "Knockout!" she squealed, and she threw her arms around the touch-a-phobic medic. He yelped and froze, afraid of moving and scratching up his paint job.

"Look, would you-Let go! I don't have time for this!"

"I missed you too!" she laughed, and she let go to see him brusquely brush the front of his chassis with a wrinkle of his face. She grinned and jumped back up on the medical berth, kicking her legs happily. "Gosh, I haven't seen you in . . . Well, a long time! How's it been?" She craned her head around the familiar medical lab. "Where's Breakdown?"

Knockout shifted. "Dead."

All the happiness of seeing her Decepticon friends again deflated. Nightstalker swallowed, a bit shocked at first, but then, almost immediately, she felt herself missing the stupid guy. Yeah, he was still stupid . . . right?

"What happened? How long have I been out? Was it the Autobots?" Oh please Primus, DON'T let it be the Autobots that did it . . .

"Airachnid," was Knockout's gruff reply. He pointed that flashlight again, repeating, "Follow the light."

Nightstalker scowled and pushed past the flashlight again. "I don't need standard check up, I'm fine!" she burst. Then, with several indefinite gestures, she asked, "Doesn't it bother you? That Breakdown's gone?"

"I don't dwell on the past, I just try to keep my skin alive now," was all Knockout would answer. He twirled the flashlight a moment before arching a brow at her and putting it away.

"But—But . . ." Nightstalker rubbed her forehead, trying to come to grasps with the fact that Decepticons were different than Autobots. Breakdown was easily replaced-and she had a feeling that he had been replaced by Dreadwing.

She sighed heavily, crossing her arms and fluttering her wings as she looked around. He might have just been there to pick on, but . . . She had known him since she was a kid. She missed him, in all his dorkiness.

A frustrated sound came from Knockout. "Look, people die in war. Just—get over it."

Nightstalker glared at him. "You get over it. Get over yourself!"

There was a pause as Nightstalker turned away from him, angry and hurt on the inside. Finally, she heard a sigh decompress from Knockout.

"Look. There's nothing we can do about it."

"I know."

"Why are you taking it so personally anyways?"

"He was a friend." She looked over at Knockout, arching an almost accusing brow. "Why AREN'T you taking it personally? He was your partner for years!"

Knockout shifted and didn't say anything, and that was when Nightstalker realized that yes, he did care. He just didn't want to, that way, he wouldn't . . . he wouldn't hurt.

She deflated again. "Knockout . . ."

He scowled as he turned to face her. "Don't you pull that crap with me," he said. "Quit being guilty over something you can't change."

Nightstalker opened her mouth to shoot back a barbed reply, but then she stopped and back tracked. "Knockout? How the scrap did you know I was guilty?"

His optics widened as if he hadn't realized he had said that. His mouth worked a second, too shocked to say anything more, and then he tried to brush it off. "Of course I could tell," he told her confidently. "Did you see your posture? And your tone of voice? Of course I could tell."

Nightstalker narrowed her optics and jumped to her feet. She jumped in front of him, poking his chest. "Don't you give me THAT crap," she shot right back. Knockout backed up a little. "I can tell a lie when I see it. And—And come to think of it, you've ALWAYS known what I've felt! How do you do that? What is it? You're hiding something, Knockout, now fess up!"

"I'm not hiding anything!" he shouted back.

"Oh yes you are!" she said with a scowl. "You always have! You've always been weird around me, and I want to know why!"

He frowned right back at her. Then, he glanced over his shoulder to the closed door of his medical area before looking back at Nightstalker.

"Do you know what a secondary sloital artery is?"

She blinked. "What?"

"The secondary sloital artery of a spark," he repeated. "It stabilizes your spark. Without one, your spark can't beat properly."

Nightstalker made a face and shrugged her shoulders, lifting her hands. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything!" he snapped. "It stabilizes your spark! And if you hook it to someone else, it synchronizes their spark beats!" When she still blinked, not getting it, the vain red medic scowled and slammed down his data pad. "Nightstalker," he said seriously, "the secondary sloital artery is the one people use when they are bonding." She blinked. "It's one of the links mechs and/or femmes use when creating a fraternal bond, a sororal bond." When she still just blinked, he scowled and shouted, "Nightstalker, I did that! I connected our sloital arteries! We're half siblings!"

Nightstalker stared, quite literally too taken aback to do anything more. Knockout, frustrated at her lack of response, stalked around the room, muttering under his breath the whole way.

"Why'd you do that?"

Knockout turned, blinking stupidly at her. "Why? That's the best you could come up with?"

Feeling dumb, Nightstalker nodded.

Knockout gave a slow, sarcastic laugh. "That's all she can think of, of course . . ." He shook his head and hiked up a brow. "If you remember correctly, I had to do spark surgery on you when you were little to keep you from dying." Nightstalker nodded mechanically. He gave a vague gesture. "Your secondary sloital artery wasn't functional. You were dying without a steady spark beat. I had to buy some time to fix you a new artery and hooked you up to me in the process."

"To keep me from dying," Nightstalker repeated.

"That's what I said!" he barked in irritation. Knockout grumbled to himself, rubbing the back of his neck and scowling at the ground.

After staring at him a moment longer, Nightstalker finally realized she had a brother. A half brother, but a brother. She . . . hadn't had a brother since Fli-Ni. She had never even CONSIDERED a new brother, not even with Bumblebee . . . Her throat bobbed.

"Do you regret it?"

He looked up.

Nightstalker nodded, standing to her peds. "Do you regret it? Being my half brother?" All these years, and she'd never known . . . The connection to him was so faint and half-finished that she couldn't feel him . . .

Knockout's red optics dilated as he looked at her. Finally, he said, "No."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

Knockout scowled then. He threw an arm out. "Of course I didn't want anyone to know! People take advantage of bonds like that, you know?"

"So you flirted with me to hide it."

He gave a vague shrug.

Nightstalker's throat tightened. With one bound, she had crossed the room and flung her arms around Knockout, hugging him tightly. Knockout yelped, but he held perfectly still, knowing better than to struggle or else they would scratch each other up.

"Nightstalker . . . Nightstalker, let go."

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "That's why I made it, wasn't it?" she asked quietly. "That's why I made it through the spark break. Cause . . . Cause you were there, even if I didn't know it."

He still didn't move. "Nightstalker . . . let go."

She squeezed him tighter, amazed at this epiphany. All those years . . . and she had believed she owed her life to Megatron when really . . .

It was Knockout.

Nightstalker laughed then, and she squeezed him tight again, partially lifting him off the floor. He shouted about his paint job, so Nightstalker let him go with a grin. "You-You really are something else, aren't you?"

Knockout rolled his optics, inspecting himself for scratches. "Don't get too attached. This doesn't leave this room or I'll skin you alive."

Nightstalker chuckled, grinning at him. "Yeah, I hear you." But, she was still giddy on the inside, practically bouncing off the walls in her happiness. A half brother! Who would have thought?

"Knockout."

Both Knockout and Nightstalker jumped at Dreadwing's deep voice. She whirled, seeing the great Decepticon in the doorway. Knockout stepped forward.

"What is it, Dreadwing?"

The Decepticon seeker's optics wouldn't leave Nightstalker. She felt a prickle run up her spine. He knew her mother. And, obviously, he knew her.

"Leave."

Knockout sputtered. "L-Leave? My own office? You can't just barge in demanding that—"

"Leave," Dreadwing repeated. He pinned his hard optics on the medic. "I must speak with Nightstalker alone."

Knockout glanced back to her, and she gave a slight motion to let him know it was all right. He clearly didn't like being booted out of his own office, but he left with a last glance to them.

The door whizzed shut behind him. Dreadwing glared at Nightstalker, and she backed up into the berth. Dreadwing walked forward until the full brunt of his frown was on her.

"You know my mom. How?"

His optics flickered. "You are her daughter," he finally said tightly. "You—"

"No, I asked how you knew my mother," Nightstalker interrupted, glaring up at him. "I know who I am. Who are you, and how do you know my mother?"

"I was her spark mate."

Another punch in the gut. Nightstalker felt the breath expel from her in a whoosh, and she sat completely down on the medical berth. She looked up with wide optics, spark fluttering so hopeful she thought she would explode. "Y-You mean . . . You're my—"

"You are not mine," he snarled with sudden anger, optics flashing dangerously. Nightstalker winced, hopes crushed as quickly as they had formed. "That glitch went and—" He cut off, fuming as he stalked several strides away. His shoulders were tense as he fought some inward struggle Nightstalker couldn't understand.

Then, her mind began to put several things together. He was her mom's spark mate. He wasn't her dad. But that could only mean . . .

Her optics widened. "Are you . . ." When her voice was nothing more than a whisper, she cleared her throat and tried again. "Are you . . . Fli-Ni's father?"

He winced. His chin came up, but his back was to her. "Yes."

Hot tears suddenly sparked in her optics. But . . . But . . . "Do you know . . . what happened to him?"

"No."

Nightstalker swallowed. Trembling, she hitched up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. "S-Someone killed him." Dreadwing whirled, giving his undivided attention to her.

"Who did it?"

She shook her head. "I—I don't know. It happened in Kaon . . . When the Decepticons—"

"Were routing the femmes and sparklings," Dreadwing snarled. "I know." He turned away again, wings tense, hands on his hips. There was a heavy beat of silence. "Ampere died in that massacre, didn't she?"

Nightstalker shook her head. "No. It was a sickness. She died well before then."

His optics flicked to her. "You and Fli-Ni had no one to care for you?"

She shook her head again. "No. Fli-Ni took care of me, and I tried to take care of him. We were on the streets."

Dreadwing's jaw clenched. "Then where was your father?" he demanded angrily, throwing an arm out to her. "Who was he, and why wasn't he taking care of you?"

"I don't know who he is!" Nightstalker snapped back, optics glaring at him. "I don't know where he was! Where were YOU?" His lips slanted. "Why weren't YOU taking care of us!"

When he failed to answer, Nightstalker blinked back her frustrated tears. "So? Then if you don't know what, who's my father? Do you know who he was?"

"No," he said flatly. "If I did, he wouldn't be functional."

Nightstalker leapt to her feet again in agitation. She glared angrily up at Dreadwing. "So what happened? Why'd you leave?"

He gave a dark laugh. "Didn't your mother ever tell you? She was ashamed of the mech she was bonded to."

Nightstalker blinked the tears back again. "She changed Fli-Ni's helm."

"And disgraced me."

Nightstalker's throat worked hard as she tried to keep all the facts straight. "But—So . . . and . . ."

"She left me for someone else," Dreadwing growled. His servos clenched, and he growled in frustration and anger. "And you—" and he gestured indefinitely to her before he was so furious he couldn't say anything at all.

Fli-Ni's father was Dreadwing. So he was her step-father. Knockout was her half-brother. She still didn't know who her father was or who killed Fli-Ni. Nightstalker pressed both palms to the front of her helm, trying to come to grips with it all. And—she had started to look to Optimus as a father, but . . . Dreadwing . . . he was her step-father!

Her helm snapped up. "Dreadwing—!"

But he was gone. Nightstalker ran from the room, intending to follow him, but all she heard was the faint roar of engines fading down the numerous halls.

Primus slag that 'Con to Pit, she was never going to get anymore straight answers out of him if he kept running from the situation!

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**ERMERGERD DID I ACTUALLY GIVE SOME ANSWERS? ^^ lmao**

**Ah, and now we get really interesting... :D**

**Once again, thanks for all the favorites and reviews, I love hearing you guys!**


	36. Intimacies

**Author's Note:**

**Well, computer crashed. I lost 3 massively amazing chapters of Fraternizing, so I'm working on re-piecing them together again. Anyways, enjoy this. ^^**

**WARNING! MASSIVELY HOT POLE DANCING SCENE AHEAD!**

**Song Nightstalker sings is: "_Gotta Get Me Some" by Nickelback_**

**Song Nightstakler dances to is: "_Off With Your Head" by Mz Ann Thropik_**

* * *

><p>"Arcee, Cliffjumper, you two are the best choices to navigate through such a densely populated area."<p>

Cliffjumper rocked on his heels. Say what? He was getting paired with Arcee? Well, he usually was, but . . . this time it was different, he . . . didn't want to be paired with Arcee. He didn't want to go looking for a relic. They still had a bead on the NEMESIS. He had a tiny seeker to fetch.

"Optimus," Jack told him, "New York has more than 8 million people. The odds of being spotted by at least one of them is pretty high. Even if they are headed underground."

Arcee looked at him, but judging by the look on her face, she had an idea. "Where are you going with this?"

"You're gonna need a face man. Someone who can speak on their behalf. A human who can run interference if their cover gets blown."

Miko jumped up, liking this idea, but irritated that Jack was getting all the shine lately. "Well I've actually been in subway stations," she tried. "I grew up in a major metropolis, unlike Mr. I've-Never-Been-Outside-Of-Jasper-Nevada."

"I have been to Cybertron," Jack mentioned. It only seemed to make Miko madder.

"Cybertron doesn't have subways!" She paused. "Does it?"

So Miko and Jack were going with Arcee and Cliffjumper. Before he could be forced to go with her, Cliffjumper piped up, "Optimus, I want to rescue Nightstalker."

Everything seemed to pause. "What?"

Cliffjumper tried to ignore Arcee's flat response, and Optimus seemed to do the same. "Cliffjumper," he stated, "I had planned to send Bumblebee onto the NEMESIS. He has been there several times before, and is familiar with its halls. As our scout, he is best equipped to sneak in. Is there a reason you wish to do this?"

Cliffjumper paused. Ah, he hadn't thought that far ahead . . . How to win the Prime to his side . . . He didn't have enough time to think it through. Instead, he just opened his mouth as he always did.

"I've got the spirit."

Oh yeah, that helped. Bumblebee got all hot under his collar too, bursting, *I've got spirit too!* because he wanted to save Nightstalker too.

Cliffjumper couldn't help but scowl some and rub the back of his neck. "Look, Bee, you don't know . . . Look, I just . . . I—"

"You like her, don't you."

Cliffjumper blinked up at Arcee whose glare was black. He took a step back. Scrap she was mad!

"I, uh . . . I—What?"

She scowled, servos clenching into fists. "You like her!" she snapped. "You always have, haven't you? That's why you didn't care if she had tortured you, because you fragging liked her all this time! I bet you even think you love her, don't you?"

His jaw popped open. "Wh-What? A-Arcee, c'mon, you don't actually think—"

"I don't have to think anything!" she interrupted angrily, coiled up for the strike. "I can see it written all over your face! And the way you talk about her! The way you are around her—" Arcee spat a rare curse under her breath. "Primus, I was a fool to keep believing . . . Well, it's clear that whatever I thought we had—it's nonexistent! Fine, you want her? Go get her! I'll stay out of your way! Bee, let's go!"

Bumblebee transformed down immediately because he knew better than to argue with her when she got herself into a lather like this. Optimus even let it go because he knew if he tried to force it the original way the infighting between Arcee and Cliffjumper would compromise the mission. Instead, Cliffjumper looked on as the kids got in their respective rides.

"I'll bring her back, Bee! I swear! I won't come back without her!"

And to Arcee? He didn't say anything. He wasn't sure if it would have done any good anyway.

* * *

><p>So, after losing sight of Dreadwing, Nightstalker stomped angrily down the halls of the NEMESIS. Great, that was just great! Well, actually it was great, but Primus slag them all to Pit this was so—COMPLICATED! Knockout was secretly her half-brother and had patched up her spark break that Fli-Ni left her with. Dreadwing was her step father, Fli-Ni's father. Dreadwing left her mother because she changed Fli-Ni's helm because she didn't want to be associated with the war and Dreadwing was a ranking general. Therefore, Fli-Ni's helm no longer bore the resemblance of his father and Ampere disgraced Dreadwing by being ashamed of the helm. Dreadwing left.<p>

Then, there was a blank. Nightstalker still didn't know who her father was, how he became associated with Ampere, and how she came to be. Obviously her father had to have loved her mother to bond with her. Did that mean her mom had broken the bond with Dreadwing to bond with someone else? It was impossible to have a child without being bonded to the mech . . .

Nightstalker groaned, pressing the heels of her palms to her head. This was all too confusing. And she STILL didn't know her father or who killed Fli-Ni.

Instead, as she traipsed around her old stomping grounds, Nightstalker bypassed some Vehicons and—ew, Insecticons!—and contemplated what to do next. She had . . . down time, and she didn't know what to do with it. Usually she'd just kill time letting Cliffjumper chat in her ear or a video game competition with—

Raf.

Cliffjumper.

"Oh my Primus what am I doing?"

Nightstalker halted in the middle of the halls, kicking herself a million times over. Here she was, perfectly happy walking around the Decepticon halls, and if Bumblebee saw her, he'd have a spark attack!

But what was she SUPPOSED to do? She had ties with the Decepticons too! A half-formed SPARK BOND tie with a half brother to be even more certain! But then she had a brother in Bumblebee, and her ties with the Autobots were stronger all around . . . But . . .

Nightstalker growled through her dentures. And then this thing with Megatron. She cared for him, yes, but . . . she just wanted to get this thing straight. Ratchet's words echoed in her processor:

Rape is rape. Whether he forcefully committed this act by brutality or by rank.

It was definitely rape by rank. She couldn't have weaseled out of it if she had tried. Megatron would have gotten what he wanted anyways. But, it hadn't hurt, and she had enjoyed it. She always did. And after those first couple times where she wasn't sure, she liked interfacing with him! So there was nothing wrong with this.

. . . Right?

Nightstalker sighed and stuffed it all away. She wasn't getting anywhere brooding like this—literally. Nightstalker started walking again, deciding that she'd just take things one step at a time.

And, when she walked into Megatron's berth room and found him there, she decided to start on step one—

Which just so happened to be squeal his name and run across the room and glomp him. But hey, it was impulse!

Letting go and looking up at him, she grinned. "Megatron, it's been too long! How have things been going around here? I heard Dreadwing was the new second in command. But I guess anyone is a step up from Starscream." Then, she noticed the pole she hadn't danced on in over three years. She grinned, and with a laugh danced up to the pole and jumped into an easy twirl. She stopped herself with her back to Megatron and bent over into a backbend, letting her legs point straight up and it gave Megatron the perfect view of her chest.

However, when she faced upside down he wore a smile. When she faced right side up, he wore a frown.

Her smile faded too, and her brows puckered. "What's wrong?" She flipped back up easily, swinging around the pole slightly as she came to face him.

Megatron put his servos back on his hips. Finally, his lips screwed up some, and he shook his head. "You're a distraction I can't afford to have at the moment."

Nightstalker grinned then. "Oh yeah?" She pulled herself up the pole and swung around easily, cajoling, "But I've practiced! I've got a new dance for you! You'll like the song. It's nice and heavy with guitar." She winked as she played with some easy tricks, not really doing anything particularly hard or acrobatic as she sang, "'God almighty! Look at that body! Flickers like a sticker on a new Ferrari! She's a scene from a Baywatch rerun! Hotter than a barrel on a squeezed machine gun!' Did you know Knockout always wanted to get me to drop my wings and be a Ferrari?" Nightstalker opened her legs wide, holding onto the pole with nothing but her hands and forearms as she mock flashed Megatron. Gah, this would be a lot easier without her armor on . . .

His optics flickered, hazy red. He finally grunted. "The wings look better," he said as if he had actually seen her with a Ferrari alt mode.

Nightstalker rolled her optics and flipped so both legs were pointing diagonally up, and she bend her top knee over the other leg, anchoring herself on the pole. She bent into another backbend, lips twisting into a grin. "You sure you don't want to stay and play?" His optics drew over her, but his lack of response troubled Nightstalker. She flipped down, twirling slightly and landing lightly on her peds, and she cocked her head, coming towards him. "What is it?"

"I should be the one asking that," he said back. Nightstalker felt her optics widen. Megatron rolled his optics then. "You don't think I know you so well?" he taunted her lightly. Nightstalker blushed, fluttering her wings. His servo snapped out, grasping the tip of her wing. "Hm, yes, something's bothering you. You're blotting it out with fun which, while quite tempting, is not prudent for the moment." He arched a brow at her, and Nightstalker dipped her head guiltily. "So let it be off your chest now, and you can work yourself into a lather for tonight. I have work planned for today."

Nightstalker bit her lip. She hesitated, wings fanning steadily with worry. "Um . . ."

"That's a poor way to start anything to say," Megatron said lightly. He shook his head. "Be out with it, Nightstalker. Confidently."

Confidence. Yeah, confidence, she could do that . . . if Megatron wasn't so big. Primus slag him to Pit, he was quite the intimidator. "Well, you remember our first interface?"

"Yes."

Ha, so point blank! Nightstalker blushed some and finally worked out of her tight articulators, "Well, I'm not sure if it was rape or not."

There! It was out! See now, was that so hard? Megatron still, and Nightstalker looked up at him. He'd drawn in tight to himself, studying her intently with a still impassiveness that was just pure eerie. "Rape?" he repeated.

Her wings fanned a little more. Had she made him mad? Primus, of course she had made him mad by accusing him of that! But, she couldn't take it back now . . . "I just wanted to clarify," she murmured nervously. "I mean . . . I didn't come willingly to you, I had to come because, well, I couldn't say no to you, now could I?" When he didn't say anything, she added, "So I mean, technically it's rape . . . but I mean, I don't hold it against you, I liked it, so it couldn't be that bad . . ."

"You think it was rape?"

Nightstalker flicked at the hard tone of his voice. She blinked up almost fearfully when he took a deliberate step towards her, but the door suddenly whizzed open and saved her.

Dreadwing stood there, optics flickering between them impassively. "My Lord Megatron," he said, "we are ready."

Ready? Ready for what? Megatron looked down on Nightstalker, something brewing behind his optics. "We will finish this conversation when the missions are complete," he stated with no room for argument. Nightstalker's optics popped as both mechs disappeared, both without so much as a second glance at her.

He—After I—And he was—Gah, both of them!

With a frustrated groan, Nightstalker threw herself down on Megatron's berth. Great. This was just turning out great. Why did everything that happened around her have to be so complicated?

She laid there for a while, contemplating everything that had happened so far, but eventually had to capitulate to the thought that she was going to be stuck here a while. Soundwave had probably been ordered to keep an eye on her. What to do, what to do . . .

Her optics pulled back up to the pole.

Well, I've got nothing better to do . . .

Nightstalker stripped off her armor, blasted the thumping music on high, and played with her tricks.

* * *

><p>It was . . . kinda eerie how quiet the NEMESIS was.<p>

Cliffjumper was afraid to check every room of the ship, and actually, the first place he was scampered down to was the torture chambers and the halls outside of there. It was creepy, and he was thankful when he didn't find her there. In fact, he didn't find her in the rooms around the hall either—he found a couple Vehicons that he had to scrap really quick before they sounded the alarm, but otherwise couldn't find her.

In fact, he was certain that he should have been spotted by Soundwave by now. Wait, how many generals did Megatron have now that he was down by Screamer and the spider bug? That left Dreadwing, Knockout, and Soundwave . . . He bet the Insecticons had a general. Did he send all of them out? But no, that wouldn't make sense to send Soundwave out. He was the communications! Wouldn't Soundwave stay behind and Megatron head out to fetch a relic himself? Or did he see the "fetching" as beneath him and just sent out his cronies?

Either way, Cliffjumper was just glad he wasn't spotted.

He checked the medical labs and didn't find anyone. He checked several room, nearly getting caught with some, and he was seriously considering whisper-calling Nightstalker's name when he heard it at the brow of the ship—music.

Music? He broke into a run down the hall. He highly doubted the Decepticons listened to music. That HAD to be her! He entered the room, fists at the ready in case he found any Decepticons, but he instead met a dim room with a berth, and . . . and . . .

_"Fall down a rabbit hole_

_Or just climb through a looking glass?"_

He straightened, optics pinning to Nightstalker as the music rolled around him. The guitar picked a haunting melody, and the heavy drum split the silence with muted thumps and distorted piano chords. Nightstalker had stripped of all her armor, nothing but black protoform with glowing orange as a throaty voice sang softly,

_"You get taller and taller and taller . . ._

_You get smaller and smaller and smaller . . ."_

Nightstalker didn't notice him as he ogled like he had lost his very processor—and, he very well might have. She was like an unearthly being as she twisted around the pole like it was a lover, caressing both it and herself with her hands. So high up, Cliffjumper's neck craned back to see her as her servos grabbed the pole firmly, and she twirled around with legs stretched straight and peds pointed; her neck arched back as she spun effortlessly around the pole, surreal with smooth movements like liquid. One leg joined the other, but her spin did not falter, and then she bent both legs, let go of the pole as she twisted upright. The fluid motions captivated Cliffjumper as he blinked up in awe at this talent he hadn't known she had.

_"The Cheshire Cat with his evil grin says_

_Remember who you are . . ."_

She seemed . . . lost, in a way. His optics drew over her slowly, fixating on her pinched brows and closed optics. Her lips parted, and she caught a thigh against the pole, arching backwards until the tip of her helm nearly touched the toes of her peds. Then, she grabbed the pole with both hands, twisting into a lazy spiral that drew Cliffjumper's optics with her body, amazed and aroused at the display of strength, flexibility, and endurance.

_"The Mad Hatter and his cups of tea_

_And the Raven and the writing desk"_

Her hips undulated towards the pole, and her pelvic region grazed the heated metal. A muted groan left Cliffjumper's lips, but it was swallowed up by the seductive music.

_"Nothing makes sense anyway_

_It doesn't make sense anyway"_

Her body flowed without a hitch, slighting and spinning. Then, her calves and hands gripped the pole, pulling her deliberately upwards to the top. Once there, she spun, curling into the fetal position, wings nearly hitting the ceiling. Only her thighs gripped the pole, and the sudden change from confident seduction to this made him want to reach out and touch her.

The spin never stopped as she uncurled, legs straightening out and arms flourishing as she lifted her head, still twirling with nothing but her thighs. She twisted around the pole, stretching and reaching out, body perpendicular with the pole.

_"Oh Alice, Oh Alice, Oh Alice_

_You're falling down a rabbit hole!"_

Cliffjumper's gaze was captivated. The way she moved with such grace and beauty was . . . astonishing. The only time he had seen her like this was after she had flown, that flush in her cheeks, the confident lift of her chin—this was the Nightstalker she, for some unsaid reason, would hide, this femme of strength and beauty. Here, in the confines of the Decepticon warship and enemies, she found solace by liberating herself with athletic acrobatics, climbing and spinning and body inversions using her limbs to grip, and the intimate caress of the pole opened her core.

_"Do you play croquet?_

_The Queen of hearts booms over you_

_When you beat them at their own game"_

And then, it hit Cliffjumper—

She was naked, and he was gawking.

He tried to peel his glossia from the top of his mouth. When he spoke her name, it was nothing but a rasp as he tried to catch her attention. Oblivious, Nightstalker locked one ankle around the pole and swung her other leg into a vertical split, valve brushing the length of metal. Another helplessly aroused and low groan fell from his vocals.

_"It's in the bloody cards_

_Off with your head"_

But Primus could damn him to the Pit if watching her was like watching art embodied into one alluring body, twisting and undulating with the ease of life, never stopping, never worried, just simple beauty and power. Her face, for once, was peaceful as she held the pole in both hands, spread both legs, and flipped herself upside down. The open glimpse of her valve in the quick movement was nearly Cliffjumper's undoing, and Nightstalker locked one knee around the pole to hold herself while the other stretched behind her. Her servos came out in a flourish, and she wore a smile though her eyes were closed. He couldn't imagine what she was envisioning.

_"Off with your head_

_Off with your head_

_Off with your head!"_

By this time, the song was fading away, and Cliffjumper's hoarse whispers of, "N-Nightstalker! Nightstalker!" were becoming audible. She was still upside down, one leg hooked around the pole and back bent around it, wings folded just so. Her other leg was pulled down at what seemed to be an awkward angle as her arm pulled that leg, and it opened her valve to the world in a provocative pose. Her optics opened, and lusty orange and tempted blue collided.

In this moment, with locked optics, Cliffjumper would never be sure what intimacies passed between them.

"CLIFFJUMPER?"

Her surprised shriek was sure to be heard from one end of the Decepticon warship to the other. If that didn't blow their cover, nothing could. Cliffjumper yelped, closed his optics and covered his eyes on top of that, embarrassed that he had been staring at her so openly. He heard her feet hit the ground.

"Cliffjumper! What are you DOING here!"

"I—I'm . . ." Suddenly, the situation was funny to him, and he laughed slightly. "I'm, uh, rescuing you."

"R—What, are you crazy? How did you get on the ship! Hasn't Soundwave seen you? How—How did YOU manage to sneak around the ship!"

Cliffjumper felt himself laughing harder, and he struggled to tone it down since he was supposed to be, well . . . undercover. "I, um . . . I'm not sure. Waltzing around since there was barely anyone out and about, caught a couple times so I had to break some necks, looking for you, and uh . . . Yeah, so we're here."

He heard her scoff impatiently. "You can take your hands away, Cliff, I'm covered."

"Already?" he burst. His optics opened to look before he could stop himself, but—dang! She was already dressed in that quick a time? That had to be record time . . .

"And I repeat, how did you get here? What in the—I mean, CLIFFJUMPER! What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you!" he repeated. "Ratchet bridged me here! Their shields still aren't up, so we tracked them easily. And you—last we saw you, you were running headlong into a swarm of Insecticons for Primus knows what reason and we never hear nor see from you again! What were YOU doing? I mean, seriously? We didn't know if you had died!"

Nightstalker jumped forward to him, bursting, "Shush! The 'Cons are going to hear you from miles away like that!"

He arched a brow. "Oh, like they couldn't hear your music?" he burst in an undertone. "Or you screaming MY name!"

"Please," she muttered, "coming from this room they don't worry about my screams . . ."

"What?"

A hot blush covered her cheeks. "Nothing!"

Cliffjumper dropped his face into his palm, groaning again at what that implied. "Look, Nights, I'm just trying to get you out of here. Or do you not want to get rescued?"

"Well—I . . . Um . . . What?"

He gave a vague gesture to the pole. "Well, you looked . . ." He faltered in his words. Sexy? No, Primus, get your head outta the gutter . . . "You looked pretty happy up there," he finally managed. "Well, you didn't act like a prisoner. So I was just making sure you really wanted to go back, y'know?"

Nightstalker blinked at him. "Really?"

He frowned. "Well . . . Yeah. It's your choice."

This time it was Nightstalker's turn to sputter. "B-But . . . You aren't WORRIED that I'm with Decepticons?"

Cliffjumper rubbed the back of his helm, giving a nervous shrug. "Well, yeah I'm worried, but . . . I don't know, I'm assuming you've got ties with them, you've lived with them all your life . . . I just don't know what you want."

Nightstalker felt her optics pop. What did she want? Primus, not even she knew that. There were still so many unanswered questions too, and for some reason she felt that only Dreadwing had them . . . But no, even he admitted he didn't know who her father was, and he didn't know who killed Fli-Ni. So what left was there? Only Knockout since Dreadwing seemed to despise her . . . And now she wasn't sure where she stood with Megatron . . .

She groaned, pressing a hand over her face. "All right, let's get out of here."

Cliffjumper broke into a wide grin, letting go of a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "All right! C'mon, I'll have Ratchet bridge us out!"

He pulled her hand, and Nightstalker followed, sending one last glance to the berth in Megatron's room, wondering if she was doing the right thing. They rounded the corner out of Megatron's room, and they both froze.

"Cliff!" Nightstalker hissed at him, "I thought you were on the lookout!"

"Oh, and you couldn't have taken a second glance around cause you know I'm like this?" he burst right back.

"I don't think it matters who didn't look," a dark voice cut in. Both Autobots looked up into furious red optics. Megatron gritted his dentures. "All I know, is you both had better start running. NOW."


	37. Hope Shattered

**Author's Note:**

**Hate to give away a big beautiful spoiler, but...**

**The crux of this chapter has been truncated due Fraternizing being reported. This was... the best, most shocking, and hard chapter because Nightstalker is raped in this chapter. There were high levels of rape, and I tried to depict rape in the worst way. Before this scene was truncated, I had received many many compliments for not sugar-coating this scene or toning it down. It was gruesome and nasty, and I did not hold back writing it.**

**In other words, I believe you are missing out on one of the best parts of the story that leads into an emotional arc if you do not read the original chapter before it was truncated. PM me if you are interested in the original chapter.**

**Otherwise, enjoy the cute cute fluff in the middle of this! ^^**

* * *

><p>"Scrap."<p>

Nightstalker and Cliffjumper transformed as quick as Jumpstarters when Megatron gave them that fair warning, off like bullets shot from a gun. Spark slamming hard in her chassis, Nightstalker zipped down the halls at top speed and almost broke her thrusters when she braked to a halt when she spied the escape pods.

That was perfect!

Nightstalker transformed, stumbling to an abrupt halt as she lunged for the pod. "Cliffjumper!" she burst. "Over—"

The rest of her sentence died on her glossia. She looked behind her to find him, and she was met with an empty hall.

_ Scrap! Scrap! Frag me flying, scrap!_

Nightstalker transformed again, cursing herself for forgetting Cliffjumper was a wheeler while she was a flier—half as fast, not even half as fast! Her burning thrusters brought her back to Cliffjumper just in time to see Megatron towering over him, blade raised high for the kill.

With a shout, Nightstalker transformed and threw her full bodyweight against his leading arm. The breath left her in a whoosh, and she hit the ground hard when Megatron threw her down. Both she and Cliffjumper blinked up at furious red optics.

Cliffjumper yelled, and he lifted his twin three-cylinder cannons and open fired on Megatron in close proximity. The war lord roared in pain, blasted away, and Nightstalker jumped up and transformed with Cliffjumper as he bellowed, "Run! Run! Run!"

Still, Nightstalker refused to go any faster than Cliffjumper could drive. "Get out of here!" he shouted up at her.

"I didn't save you from this ship the first time just to have you come back and die!" Nightstalker snapped right back. Half a second later, she heard the roar of engines right before something crashed into her side.

The world tipped and spun. Her right side smashed into the wall, and she fell with a stunning crash, flipping and turning. With a pained cry, Nightstalker transformed again, servos scrabbling on the smooth ground for a grip. The floor burned up her side.

Cliffjumper braked with a screech of tires. "Nightstalker!"

Nightstalker lifted her woozy head, optics blinking rapidly to calibrate and clear up from the static fuzz. She stumbled in the general direction of Cliffjumper, and when her optics finally cleared up, her spark leapt to her throat at Cliffjumper trying vainly to fight the towering Megatron. The Decepticon leader's servo clamped down over his face, and he slung the small warrior into the wall. Cliffjumper staggered, servo groping wildly for a handhold before Megatron backhanded him so hard he crashed to the ground with a heavy grunt.

Nightstalker dug in her heels. She pumped her legs as hard as she could as she ran towards Megatron, spark beating a panicked beat inside her chassis. When Megatron raised his sword again, Nightstalker leapt, whips blazing to life with electricity, and she slashed them down as hard as she could over his back.

Megatron arched and roared as the volts ripped into his system like lightning. Cliffjumper wiggled away and started to scramble up, but Megatron drove through the pain, hacking into his leg. Cliffjumper howled when the blade pierced his metal. Nightstalker gritted her dentures and lashed both whips over Megatron's leading arm. The arm spasmed a moment, and Megatron whirled on her.

Her spark leapt to her throat. Nightstalker backed away from his deliberately approaching steps, and she slapped the ground with her whips, sparks of electricity flying up in clouds to intimidate him. To her mounting horror, his optics danced, incensed by the tease.

Several hard shots from behind had Megatron whirling on Cliffjumper again. Nightstalker, panicking, raveled up her whips and yanked out the last vial of Airachnid's venom. Opening it, she aimed and threw it. The glass vial landed neatly on Megatron's upper back, bright green liquids dribbling down him and into the wires.

Megatron roared in agony, dropping Cliffjumper and servos scrabbling at the venom that seeped down his back. Cliffjumper transformed down with a pained cry, and Nightstalker followed him as they left behind a furious Megatron. Nightstalker landed in front of Cliffjumper, pointing rapidly to the pods.

"Cliff! Right here!"

Cliffjumper transformed, and Nightstalker shrieked and ducked when a blast from Megatron's ion cannon crashed above their heads. With a staggering jump, Cliffjumper shoved her inside the pod and followed. The pod disengaged with a heavy clang, and they fell from the _NEMESIS_.

Nightstalker panted, and she tensed up as she saw Cliffjumper bleeding all over the floor. He looked out the pod window as she stammered, "C-Cliff—your leg, you—"

He scooted over and brought her in his arms. She squeaked at the sudden change. "Landing," he muttered.

True to his words, the pod landed with a hard crash, jostling them inside. Nightstalker fell against Cliffjumper who set his jaw and pushed her behind him. He blasted the pod open, and Nightstalker coughed on the smoke; when she left the pod, she coughed on the dust.

Cliffjumper craned his head around the narrow and deep, rocky crevice they had fallen into. "All right," he said, immediately deducing that her wingspan was too wide to fit, "I'll give you a boost up on the pod and you'll have to pull me up. Then I'll give you another boost—maybe a throw—to the top. All right?"

"A-All right," she stuttered. He easily helped her to the top of the pod. When Nightstalker reached down for him, it took all of her strength to help him up, especially with his bum leg. Jets screamed above. Both Nightstalker and Cliffjumper looked up. Megatron blotted out the skies.

"PERISH!"

A volley of shots from his ion cannon rained down on them. Nightstalker screamed when they crashed above, causing the walls of the crevice to crumble in a waterfall of rocks and debris. Cliffjumper grabbed her, protecting her from the heavier stones as they filled the cave, up to the pod, up until it began to cover their peds. Even when the rocks crushed in on his ruined calf, Cliffjumper merely gave a pained scream and lifted Nightstalker up.

Instinct grabbed her. Nightstalker reached to Cliffjumper's neck, praying and praying he would forgive her as she grabbed the correct wire and pulled. His screams cut short, drowning in a burst of static as if he had died, and Nightstalker swallowed all her sounds of fear as the rock slide fell about them, debris blocking out the sun. When Cliffjumper continued to wrench and shake in pain and fear, Nightstalker grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her. His panicked venting shuddered and he pressed his face into hers. She pressed back, drawing his strength.

The roar of falling debris slowed to a halt. In the silence, Nightstalker shivered, afraid to even breathe an intake when she heard Megatron land on top of the rubble. Cliffjumper's intakes seized in pain and fear, and he wrapped and arm around Nightstalker. Her servos reached up and gripped at his chassis as Megatron stomped on the top of the debris. Shots rang out. The debris rumbled and shuddered threateningly, but didn't fall on them. They held each other as Megatron continued his scrutiny.

Finally, when he either determined them dead or buried alive beneath without a way out, they heard a kick of his thrusters as he took off and left. Even then they shivered, terrified beneath the heaped debris.

It was concern for Cliffjumper that finally brought Nightstalker to action. With a shaking servo, she reattached the wire she had disconnected. Cliffjumper gasped with a wince and a twitch, and after a fizz of static, asked,

"Was that really necessary?"

Guilt choked her throat. "I—It—You . . ."

He gave a weak laugh. "Yeah, I know, my screaming would have certainly tipped him off."

Nightstalker ducked her head, in cycles hitching with impending tears. "I—I'm sorry," she finally managed tightly. "I—I'm sorry, this is my fault. If I hadn't—"

Cliffjumper looked up, and his servo took her shoulder. "Nightstalker, don't—"

"But I did!" she interrupted harshly, hot tears beginning to slip down her cheeks. "I went back! Like a fragging miss-clock kite! And because of that—"

"Stop it," Cliffjumper cut in. He grabbed her by her helm, shaking her slightly. "Nights, stop it. Don't even go there. I know what I was getting into, And I know you—you wouldn't have gone back without good reason. Now stop it. Calm down." His thumb traced over her cheek in their cramped confines, wiping her tears away.

Nightstalker shuddered, sucking in a breath and choking on the dust. She coughed several times to clear her in cycles, biting her lip to hold back the rest of the tears. Cliffjumper gave a broad grin.

"Good. You know I don't do that tears business. Now, better?"

She shook her head, and his smile fell away. He sighed, hooking a finger under her chin and lifting up her head when she tried to hang it.

"Look at me," he murmured to her. The darkness was lit only by their optics as she did so. "This isn't your fault," he told her in no uncertain terms. "Don't do that to yourself. All right? You're better than that, and you know. I know it. Now breathe. Easy does it." His thumb brushed slowly again, this time over her bottom lip. Nightstalker felt her intakes still. She watched his optics dip lower than her optics. "Easy does it . . ."

When he leaned forward, Nightstalker's spark rate rocketed through the roof and she jerked back, knocking her helm on the rocks behind her. Cliffjumper chuckled, reaching his servo behind her head and holding her, thumb soothing over the bump. "Easy does it . . ."

His lips pressed softly to her, and Nightstalker felt the breath steal away from her. In their grave of stone, lit only by the glow of their optics, Nightstalker tasted bliss for the first time. They parted, and Nightstalker gasped irregularly, struggling to find some air.

Cliffjumper's mouth tipped into a cheeky smile. "Easy, Nights! Am I that good a kisser? Kiss you breathless?"

Nightstalker nodded. "Yeah," she said back without any preamble. That made Cliffjumper laugh freely. She looked up with hopeful orange optics. "Could you . . . I mean . . . Could you do it again?"

He grinned. "Could I ever." He leaned forward again, and this time when he pressed his mouth to hers, he traced his lips up to her audio receptor. "Like that?" he husked.

She nodded quickly again, struggling to find her breath. "Y-Yeah. Like that." She took in several breaths to steady her intakes before she looked up into Cliffjumper's optics again. "I—I've never been kissed like that before. I—I mean—Megatron. H-He never kissed me like that before. I've never . . ."

She trailed to a halt at the sadness that stole over Cliffjumper's gaze. She swallowed guiltily, but he merely cupped her cheek with his servo, murmuring, "Megatron could never kiss you like this. He doesn't understand what . . ."

Cliffjumper trailed off. When he did, Nightstalker looked up at him curiously, asking, "Understand what what is?"

Cliffjumper's neck bobbed. He leaned in until his breath was just as whisper across her face. "He doesn't understand . . . what this is . . ."

Before she could ask what "this" was, Cliffjumper's mouth had taken hers again, gently, pressing with a type of cherishing affection Nightstalker had never felt before. His lips were gentle, moving over hers skillfully as his fingers ghosted beneath her jawline, lavishing generous and sweet attention to her lips that made shivers run through her systems.

When his lips parted from hers, Nightstalker shuddered in a gasp, nerve endings practically singing through the tips of her toes to the tips of her wings. Her wings fluttered a little, scraping against the wall. "C-Cliffjumper," she whispered breathlessly, "I—I've never felt this way before. But I mean—I—I like it. I like it . . . a LOT."

His lips pulled into a soft smile. "Well good," he teased her lightly. He kissed her quickly again for good measure. "Cause it's going to be happening a lot more." Then, he looked up. "Once we get out of here."

Nightstalker looked up too. Her happiness deflated as all she could barely see through the darkness was a ceiling of rock. "How?" she asked plaintively.

Cliffjumper threw her a grin and a wink. "Guess I'll just have to dig us," he said. In saying so, he reached up and began to dig. When the rocks creaked and groaned forebodingly, both Nightstalker and Cliffjumper winced and cowered.

"Not a good idea," Nightstalker finally said flatly.

Cliffjumper scrunched his face up at the ceiling. "Well, if you've got a better idea than to sit here and leak to death . . ."

Nightstalker bit her lip. "Can we contact Ratchet?"

Cliffjumper shook his head. "Nope. Already tried it. The rocks have to be blocking the signal."

"Scrap." Nightstalker paused, gnawing on her lip. "Well . . . surely there's a better way."

"While you think of that, I'll be busy getting my other hand free."

So, while Cliffjumper twisted and turned and squirmed, working up his arm from between a rock and his hip, Nightstalker debated their situation—without much luck. By the time Cliffjumper had got his arm free, she still didn't have anything. So he began to dig again.

Dislocated rubble rained down on them, getting grit in their systems. And, though it grumbled and moaned menacingly, the ceiling held. Nightstalker counted it as sheer luck while Cliffjumper accounted it to a higher level, but either way, they were on the first steps to getting free. Cliffjumper eyed his handiwork when he couldn't reach any higher without straining his caught leg, a leg Nightstalker was petrified was going to get infected at this rate.

"All right," Cliffjumper finally said. "I'm going to give you a boost up. If you lay your wings flat, I'm sure you can squeeze up there and dig the rest of the way. Then, when you get to the surface, you can contact base, give them the rundown, get the team out here to dig me out, and viola! We all live happily ever after. Right?"

Nightstalker looked up at the narrow passage Cliffjumper had dug out. "Right," she said with failed bravado. "I can do that."

"Course you can," Cliffjumper said with a wink. "Could I bribe you with another kiss?"

Nightstalker looked up at him and looked back up at the ceiling. She pushed an unconvinced sound from her lips. "We'll just see about that . . ."

Nightstalker's little frame was easily given a boost up, and she pressed her wings flat. The walls scraped against her wings, but she began the upwards dig while squinting through the dust. When she stood on her toes, Cliffjumper grabbed her ankles and boosted her up to stand on his shoulders. When she stood on her toes on his shoulders, he grabbed her ankles again and boosted her up further. When she couldn't move her wings she got a severe case of claustrophobia that Cliffjumper had to talk her out of, but otherwise, things proceeded smoothly for having their fate riding on Nightstalker's scared shoulders.

Light began to trickle in. Empowered, excitement spread through Nightstalker, and she tore at the rocks quicker, bursting, "Cliff, Cliff, we're almost out!"

He gave a hearty laugh. "Atta girl, Nights! We're outta here!"

Nightstalker grinned when her servos broke into the air, a last shower of rocks and dust falling down. The sunlight blinded her a moment, and then, a hand snapped around her wrist.

Nightstalker screamed when she was yanked none-too-gently from their prison of rocks, and Cliffjumper shouted after her. Nightstalker shrank at the sight of furious red optics that promised to cut the energon out of her.

"What was it you said to me?" Megatron growled. "Raped you, did I?" His vice-like grip tightened until it literally crushed her wrist, and Nightstalker shrieked, splintering fires racing up her arm. "It seems to reason that the lying energon of a Decepticon still flows in you, AUTOBOT!"

When Nightstalker instinctively attacked with her free hand, he easily caught her attack. He gestured angrily to the three Vehicons behind him. "Get that imbecile out of those rocks and shut him up!"

As a unit, all three Vehicons began to dig for Cliffjumper, and Nightstalker cried out his name when she heard him scream as he was yanked out. Two Vehicons slung Cliffjumper to the ground, the third kicking his wounded leg. A hoarse scream cracked from his articulators.

Nightstalker was about to call his name when she felt herself lifted and slung. The breath left her in a painful whoosh, and she struggled to breathe when his servo slammed into her throat so hard he nearly broke it with one irate blow.

"Nightstalker! Nights!"

She barely heard Cliffjumper's worried yells as her one good servo pulled uselessly at Megatron's inescapable grip. His hellish red optics glinted in her line of sight, and he snarled, "If you thought what we had before was rape you are SORELY mistaken. You want to know what rape is, you little glitch? Well, now you'll get it!"

Nightstalker had enough time to widen her optics, feel his clawed hands sink into her pelvic region, and a violent RIP.

Nightstalker bucked and shrieked in agony when he ripped her interfacing panels aside and cast them off like vile offal. Her central processor, fritzing with pain, could barely understand Cliffjumper's infuriated and terrified yells.

"You keep your hands off her!" he bellowed. Struggling up as much as he could, Cliffjumper transformed his servos into his ion cannons, and the instant he did, the three Vehicons attacked. The first kicked his wounded leg, easily bringing him back to his knees. The second blasted a laser through his left cannon, ripping his arm asunder and jamming the gun and his arm's transformation sequence. The third grabbed his neck and slammed the muzzle of his laser to his helm with the threat to shoot if he tried anything again.

Nightstalker, however worried about Cliffjumper, was frozen in rising fear at the immeasurable fury in Megatron's optics. Vaguely, she heard the click of something, and Megatron bared his teeth at her.

"I hope you enjoy this as much as I do," he hissed malevolently. A chill swept over Nightstalker's circuits. Her energon tanks rolled with sudden, sickening clarity of how horrible this was going to be when she felt his spike press against her valve. Her vocals fused with terror; Cliffjumper's horrified shouts rose in panic.

"No! Don't you do it, you sick fragger!"

Instinctively, Nightstalker tried to get a hold of the base. She toggled and dialed and redialed, but something was jamming her signal—frag, what—what—Ratchet! She tried to scream, but nothing came out but an airy rasp.

***scene truncated***

At this point, she wasn't sure what was hurting more—the rape of her body or her mind. Things were eerily quiet at this point, and through the rushing of energon in her audio receptors, she was aware that Cliffjumper had finally given up his pleading for Megatron to stop. He wouldn't stop. Not until he was satisfied. And when would that be? Nightstalker didn't know. Maybe when she was dead.

When Megatron finally tired of her, he smirked at Cliffjumper's bowed head and Nightstalker's unresponsive form. Her optics were still online, flickering in pain and disorientation, but when he waved his servo in front of her, she didn't even seem to notice it. Bemused, Megatron turned off the signal jammer. He accessed her communications, leaning his face in close to hear and speak through her lines.

"Nightstalker," he heard Optimus say strictly, and his smirk widened at the stress in the Prime's voice. "What is your status? What has happened to you and Cliffjumper?"

Megatron's lip curled. "Much more than you know, Prime," Megatron hissed into her communications line. In the base, Optimus froze, a cold chill settling in his circuits. Megatron gave a dark laugh. "Come and collect these wretches you call soldiers. I'm sure there's enough energon spilled here that you can trace them."

Megatron tossed Nightstalker over his shoulder, and she flopped like a rag doll, too weak and exhausted to help herself. With a gesture, two of the Vehicons lifted the distraught Cliffjumper and dragged him forward. A second later, the Autobot ground bridge opened up and Optimus, Bumblebee, and Arcee all rushed out with weapons drawn.

"Megatron . . ." Optimus growled darkly. His optics grazed over Nightstalker and to Cliffjumper. The Vehicons threw him forward, and he fell face-flat into the ground, uncaring. His blasters were mangled while one arm was bleeding profusely, and his damaged leg was gushing energon too, filled with dirt and infestation. With shock, Optimus saw his shoulders shaking and could hear his weeping.

Megatron's facial expression was picturesque of sadistic evil. With a toothy smirk, Megatron said, "Take these wretches. You can watch this one waste away and die." Saying so, he tossed Nightstalker on her back in front of the Prime, turned, and took off with his three Vehicons.

Optimus's gun followed Megatron mechanically, but his optics dropped to Nightstalker as a wave of sickening horror washed over him. Bumblebee's shriek lambasted across his audio receptors in despair, and the scout sank to his knees and covered his face, so revolted by the sight that he couldn't even move to help her. Arcee stared, almost uncomprehending of the disgusting sight presented to them.

Cliffjumper's despairing sobs punctured through the silence.

"I just watched . . . all I did was watch . . . I couldn't do anything . . ."

Nightstalker's legs were spread akimbo at awkward angles, evidence of her hips being broken out of alignment. Pools of sticky energon seeped into the dirt from her valve, and her chassis was a messy array of bloody energon lines ripped asunder. Her wrists and arms were twisted, mangled, and energon gushed profusely from her chassis, spark beating in plain sight. Her delicates were raped and torn, wirings sliced and ripped and cut, an incomprehensible mass of mutilated parts.

Optimus's energon tanks rolled with the urge to purge, but he fought it down.

_ Ratchet does not need this on top of what has happened to Bulkhead . . ._

Snapping into action, Optimus approached the critical Nightstalker, and he was astonished to find her still online and lucid. Her optics stared listlessly up at him as he knelt down, servos hovering uncertainly and shaking.

"You were right," she whispered. A humorless laugh left her. "I was a fool. You were always right . . ."

His palm rested against her cheek as his spark surged protectively. He quaked. "I didn't want to be," he whispered. He shook his head. "Not this time . . ."


	38. Despair

"Agent Fowler, open a ground bridge and remove the children from the vicinity IMMEDIATELY."

Fowler's eyes widened at the flat, dark tone of Optimus's voice. He had heard the Prime angry before, had heard his patience stretched thin, but never, NEVER this black.

This was one order he wasn't going to question, no matter how strange. "All right, you heard the big man," Fowler said. He jerked a thumb to the elevator. "My car's up top. We can squeeze everyone in."

"I'm not leaving Bulkhead!" Miko cried out immediately.

Fowler didn't hesitate to grab her arm before she could run off and say to Optimus, "Optimus, Miko is—"

"Miko," Optimus's voice interrupted severely, "you will leave with Fowler and that is an ORDER."

Her eyes popped, and as Raf hurriedly reopened the ground bridge, Fowler hustled all of them into the elevator. The door closed just in time to shield their eyes from Optimus coming in while carrying Nightstalker who was sinking into stasis.

"Ratchet."

The medical officer, in the middle of a delicate repair of Bulkhead's back (whose spark was still fluttering with the imminent threat to flat line again) flicked his eyes up irritably to Optimus. His servos froze as he saw Optimus carrying the devastated Nightstalker, and his energon tanks rolled.

"By the All Spark . . ."

It took the CMO half a nano-click to snap into motion. "Get her on my medical berth," he snarled and pointed. "NOW. Arcee, Bumblebee, lay Cliffjumper there," and he gestured to the nearby floor, cursing the fact that they only had two medical berths. He shuffled medical instruments as Optimus laid Nightstalker as gently as possible on the medical berth, and Ratchet shooed him off. "Optimus, you're in charge of Bulkhead," and he sent him a detailed data burst of the former Wrecker's condition and the medical attention he required. He could trust Optimus with that—the commander may be uncomfortable with medical works as he felt he wasn't qualified for the job, but he had steady hands and a will of steel.

"Bumblebee, I need energon!" he roared. He had barely said the words before the wired scout took off down the halls of the silo. "Arcee, tend to Cliffjumper. I need that leg disinfected and cauterized immediately!" He shuddered to even THINK of adding an infection to the list.

"What about his arm?" Arcee asked shakily, disturbed at the thought of having to perform medical proceedings she wasn't qualified for. And, with his arm blasted right through and energon pooling everywhere, she quaked at the thought of what kind of medical surgery Ratchet would want her to perform.

"Clamps on any bleeding energon lines, cauterize it, and I'll get there!" Ratchet spat the words as his optics roved restlessly over Nightstalker's critical condition. Uncharacteristically, his servos shook, nearly dropping his tools.

_ I don't even know where to start._

* * *

><p>Knockout staggered against his medical berth when a wave of cold fear washed over him.<p>

_ The frag?_

His spark writhed as he shook unwillingly, bewildered at this sudden terror that slashed its way into being, and there was pain. Oh Primus, he'd never felt pain like this! It ripped him asunder from the inside out, and something was screaming in desperation. Knockout's servos shook, and he braced himself on the berth, spark beating with jagged irregularity.

There was only one answer for a phenomenon like this, and it had to be Nightstalker. She was in pain. She was scared—deathly scared. She needed help and was projecting so violently over the half-formed bond that he could feel it. He could FEEL it, feel her, her terror, her pain, her desperation. It bundled up tightly in his spark, threatening to explode and take him down with her.

"No!" The word shouted from his vocals, and his claws tightened on the berth in fear.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The bond was only half formed for a reason! That meant they were connected, but not like this! He shouldn't be able to feel anything from her! They had never been so close to full connection like they were now—!

Shackled down by a sister? With the threat that she would die and he would pay the price? No! This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. He WOULDN'T let it happen like this.

Knockout slammed the door on the bond as hard as he could. A begging plea slithered its way in, but he blocked that too, shaking with the fear that Nightstalker should somehow make the bond stronger and want to make a full bond. He wouldn't allow it. He had himself to take care of! He didn't want to be dependent on her nor did he want to have to take care of her!

Knockout sank to his knees, shuddering with his jaw clenched as he forced her away as violently as she had invaded him. She sought solace from whatever she was suffering, but Knockout?

He was afraid of it.

He didn't know what was going on, only that he didn't want a part of it. He shoved her away with all his might, ruing the day he had made the connection.

"You weren't supposed to mess it up," he muttered tightly. His servos hit the ground, fingers digging into the floor, and he shook his head. "You weren't supposed to try for more! Be happy with what I gave you! Not—" A sharp hiss interrupted his words, and a hand leapt to his aching chassis, fingers clawing and scratching his own paint the pain was so prominent.

Pure despair. It seeped its way in around the edges, pulsing and pressing with the swelling strength of oceans against the wall he held up. Knockout fought it back, terrified of what would happen if he opened up and allowed her in.

"Leave me," he rasped to her. "You aren't my sister! You never were! No, no . . ." It was a phenomena that left him with no words, only a ragged gasp of fear and guilt as the pressing faded away. She gave up, swallowed in her despair, and he allowed it to drag her down.

The heavy weight that had pulled on him faded away. Knockout shivered, servos clenching as he knelt on the ground.

This was why he never did commitment. He just wasn't cut out for it. This was why he never let himself care about people other than himself. Care, friends, love—it just lead to pain and suffering. Every time. It wasn't worth the hurt he would feel, and he wasn't going to risk it now.

* * *

><p>It was unreal what Ratchet could really do in a short span of time when three lives weighed down on his shoulders.<p>

Bulkhead was finally stabilized and Cliffjumper had a firm patch job done on him, his wounds not as pressing as others. But Nightstalker . . .

Ratchet had slaved over her nonstop for hours. The long hours stretched as Bumblebee quickly and efficiently replaced energon cubes that dripped themselves dry to fuel Nightstalker hooked to an IV. Ratchet's hands had begun by taking his instruments and removing the broken and ruined parts from Nightstalker, clamping closed her energon lines to preserve the life there and stop the energon from gushing out. After clearing the shattered metal and broken bits and sliced lines, he mopped up most of the energon so he had a fairly clean working area and could actually see the problem.

That was when things began to get difficult.

He tackled her neural and motor lines first, worried that it would affect her neural network or overall transformation sequence, and he repaired what he could. Moving body parts back into position was a task that had him wincing, and he had to completely remove her coolant tanks, make delicate repairs with his welder and smooth them down carefully before replacing the pulped tanks. He pinched together fluid lines and used the dissolvable electrical tape to hold them together. He pushed her hydraulic pistons back into place and focused on piecing together her lubricant stores. He poured an energon tampered with healing liquids over the scratches and grooves left on her spark, praying to Primus that the spark break he could see engraved there would slowly soothe and the marks from Megatron would heal. The extensive work he poured into her barely scratched the surface over the days compounded with Cliffjumper and Bulkhead's delicate repairs, but he finally pulled her together enough that she finally seemed to resemble herself. Her hips were still horribly broken, the fluid lines would take weeks upon weeks to actually heal, and her neural and motor lines were so corrupted it would be a wonder if she could move on her own again, but for the most part, the medic had done all he could.

For the first time in over two days, Ratchet surfaced back to the world of the living with a distressed grumble, pinching his aching brow and cracking his tight neck.

He looked up, sensing a worried gaze on him. He found Optimus leaning against the wall, and the Prime stepped forward and extended an energon cube to him. Exhausted, Ratchet took it and drank, astounded that he could even keep his hands steady he was so low. Optimus didn't speak, but Ratchet noted his pinched brows and the troubled gaze that grew distant at the far wall.

"Optimus."

The great Prime looked up at him, and Ratchet set aside his half-finished cube. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "You do not need the added stress," he finally murmured.

"I'm a medic," Ratchet stated. "I signed up for the stress when I took the job. It's you, our leader, who cannot have his processor divided at a crucial time like this. Now, what is it?"

A harsh breath left him. He lifted his servo, pressing it to his forehead. "Ratchet . . . I am a fool." When the medic did not interrupt, Optimus clenched his jaw, shaking he was so consumed with regret for his actions. "Ratchet, I . . . This is my fault. All of it. If I hadn't told Nightstalker . . ."

Ratchet finally shifted. "Told her what?" he asked warily.

Optimus winced. "Ratchet," he finally whispered, "Nightstalker has been secretly seeing Megatron in the night." The medic started in shock. "And I—I allowed it. I let her go, and because of my decisions . . . I've . . . I've ruined her."

Ratchet gaped at Optimus, not sure what he was hearing from his leader. No . . . just—no. Not Optimus. This wasn't the Optimus he knew. The tense beats of silence were punctuated only by the foreboding pace of his patients' spark beats.

"Optimus," he finally rasped quietly, "no . . . You mean . . ." His hands clenched as recognition finally set in and his arms began to shake. A hard burst of Cybertronian curses made Optimus cringe as Ratchet rarely ever resorted to cursing. "You mean to tell me you KNEW Megatron was fragging her!"

Guilt ripped its way across Optimus's features. Finally, finally he nodded. "Yes," he muttered. Unable to look the irate medic in the optics, Optimus turned his face away, spark aching low.

"Are you out of your fagging mind!" Ratchet exploded. "Optimus, that's TREASON! In the VERY least! I can't believe you let her go to him! What were you thinking?"

Optimus winced slightly at the acerbic words, but he knew they were well-directed. "It was . . ." Optimus squeezed his optics shut, servos slaking in shameful defeat, "a wretched lapse in judgment," he grumbled painfully.

"A lapse in judgment?" Ratchet spat, almost quivering he was so furious. His hand slashed through the air. "Optimus, what in the All Spark were you THINKING! You can't just LET her go to Megatron and—and—" Overcome with stifling passion, Ratchet gesticulated angrily towards Nightstalker on the medical berth. "What the FRAG were you thinking!"

Optimus trembled. His helm dropped. "It was selfish," he finally admitted softly. His hands clenched helplessly in frustration at himself. "She said she could see Megatronus in Megatron when she was with him, and I . . . I let her go because I thought she could bring my brother back," he whispered shamefully.

There was a beat of incredulous silence. "Megatronus," Ratchet finally repeated in scorn. "MEGATRONOUS?" He threw up his hands. "Oh, that's just priceless! Optimus, the mech you knew as Megatronus has been dead for MILLENIA! Get it into your thick processor, Megatronus will NEVER be coming back!"

"I know," Optimus said quietly.

Ratchet, infuriated beyond belief, gestured aimlessly in frustration as he began to pace restlessly back and forth. "Megatron! By the All Spark, Optimus, what is going on with you! How could you let her go to him? To get FRAGGED no less! If I didn't know you any better, I would strap you down to my medical berth and defrag that twisted processor of yours! Oh, right, I forgot," and Ratchet's words seeped with hateful irony, "my medical berths are full right now," and he gestured to Cliffjumper, Nightstalker, and Bulkhead. "Full of YOUR soldiers, Prime!"

His pride pricked at his tone. "I know that, Ratchet," he growled.

"To MEGATRON!" Ratchet exploded again. He made indefinite motions full of outrage and disbelief. "Optimus, I can't believe you! She's been abused by him long enough, WHY did you let her go back!"

Optimus latched to Ratchet's words immediately. He straightened, looking down on his agitated CMO. "Abused?" he repeated.

"Yes, abused!" Ratchet snarled. He whipped around to face the Prime, poking an accusing finger out at him. "Do you think it was mere CHANCE that Nightstalker was Megatron's frag partner? She's been fragged against her will almost all her life! Do you think someone just out of her youngling years would have gone WILLINGLY to Megatron? Of course not! She was too young to even PERCIEVE how wrong it was! And YOU let her ruin herself further," and Ratchet jabbed that finger into Optimus's stomach plates with a vile glare, "and let Megatron RAPE her! And I'm not talking about just this!" Ratchet threw a furious arm towards Nightstalker's tattered form barely clinging to life. "I'm talking about EVERY time that foul, despicable, disgusting wretch ever TOUCHED her! That was BEYOND contempt, BEYOND disgraceful every time you let her walk into Megatron's trap! And THIS is what you have to show for it!"

Ratchet pointed to the comatose Nightstalker, and before Optimus could formulate a response to the aggressive attack on his leadership, a quiet, strangled bleep broke the silence. Both mechs' helms whipped around, and Optimus froze at the sight of Bumblebee standing in the entrance to the main room of the silo. His optics were dilated tight with pain, and silent tears slipped down his face.

Optimus took a step towards him. "Bumblebee—"

*You—You—!* Unable to speak around what he was feeling, Bumblebee fled from the room with a high-pitched wail of despair, and Optimus felt a knife cut through his spark. When he made a move to follow the distressed scout, Ratchet's voice stopped him short.

"Let him go! You've caused enough damage as it is!"

Optimus stiffened and turned, glaring down at his medical officer that was taking risky liberties. "Ratchet, I KNOW," he stressed. Something hitched in the back of his systems, but he ignored it, focused on dressing Ratchet back down to size. "You do not think I KNOW how wrong it was now? Do you not think I carry that guilt in my spark for what I allowed to happen? I understand that this is MY failing, Ratchet, and I understand it fully. I am VERY aware that I made a mistake, one that Nightstalker and Cliffjumper have paid the price."

"Look at her, Optimus!" Ratchet shouted back, voice stretched thin with passions. He quaked with fury. "Look at what's _left_ of her!" His voice broke momentarily with horrified, disturbed and rising tears before he seized his anger again. "Can you even begin to IMAGINE what Megaton did to her? Can you imagine his spike shoving into her repeatedly, over and over, ripping apart her valve? Can you imagine his claws tearing open her chest plates, mutilating her spark chamber, and defiling a place so sacred! Can you imagine the energon spilling everywhere—!"

"I KNOW!" Optimus bellowed, momentarily shocking Ratchet into silence. In fact, Optimus hadn't been able to even begin to perceive how horrible the rape was, but Ratchet's vulgar words gave him a shock back to Earth, no matter how disturbing. "Enough, Ratchet! I know what I have done was wrong, and I will carry the guilt of it within my spark for all time, I do not need you bringing me lower than I already am. Am I not allowed to make one mistake in my entire life? Is it because I am a Prime?" Bitterness bled into his tone, and Optimus set his jaw, jealous of not having the weight of the Matrix on his spark and drowning in resentfulness towards himself. "Is that why I am perceived as perfect, that even I cannot make a single mistake?"

Ratchet narrowed his optics and leaned forward, meeting Optimus's dangerous leer head on. "Mistakes are inevitable," Ratchet hissed, "but THIS was deliberate. You did not stop her from meeting Megatron even though you KNEW it was wrong. You didn't believe you were doing right, you were CONSCIOUSLY aware that it was wrong, and you did it anyways." Ratchet glared darkly as his snarling voice finally tapered off. For a minute, their optics crackled with rage and stress, but it was finally another voice that broke the silence.

"All right, enough. Both of you. Your yelling is scaring Bumblebee."

Both mechs looked over at Arcee whose cold optics were digging holes into them. Her gaze shifted to Optimus. "And what does he mean, 'you did it anyways'?"

"Yes, Optimus," Ratchet growled derisively. "Tell her what you did. Tell her! You always make examples of our failings, so now's your chance to use yourself!"

Arcee's optics shifted as she crossed her arms, assessing the tense situation before her and Ratchet's undeniable fury as he double-checked the levels of his patients, nervously making sure they were still stable. Uncharacteristically, Optimus's peds shuffled as he turned, and his shoulders slumped.

"I . . ." The words tangled. His articulators fused together. Arcee raised an uncomfortable brow, suspicious. "I . . . It—" Optimus shook his head, and everything about him deflated, leaving nothing but defeat. "It was my fault," he mumbled. "I let her go to Megatron. I had the chance to stop this, and I didn't. I am at fault. Her energon—possibly, her life—is on my servos."

Arcee stiffened. She stared at Optimus in shock before she chose not to say anything at all. If she lost it in front of the Prime, she wouldn't be able to control herself. Instead, she spun smartly on her heel and marched out of the silo with servos clenched, vowing to tell Bulkhead and Cliffjumper when they woke up. They deserved to know. That wasn't something you could hide.

A sinking feeling stole over Optimus's spark that had more than just dealing with Nightstalker's rape. Primus, it was betrayal of his own bots. He had betrayed their trust, and now their view of him was skewed; his leadership was flawed; he had hurt them all.

_ Oh, Primus, how do I fix this?_

After checking on his patients for the umpteenth time, Ratchet, quivering with so much rage he could barely contain himself, barked at Optimus, "I'm going to the back. Watch them, if you can, and tell me of even the SLIGHTEST change."

A small and dutiful, "Yes, sir," followed Ratchet out of the medical area, and the medic stalked to the back to find Bulkhead's punching bag that was chained to the ceiling. Balling his servos into tight fists, Ratchet began to punch the bag with all the force he could muster, trying to burn out as much resentment as he possibly could.

_ You aft, Optimus! You fragging aft!_

Ratchet attacked the bag vigorously, jabbing and hitting like he hadn't done for thousands of years since he was a young, hot-headed mech on the field of battle. Optimus was his victim in his mind, and every blow he gave to the bag he imagined it was Optimus. The Prime needed some sense beat into him. He wondered how Optimus had managed to make such a faulty decision as he had.

The punches came faster. As Ratchet's anger at Optimus burned out, his hatred towards Megatron rose. That despicable wretch! His blows gained extra force, the bag slinging on the chain. That heathen deserved to rot in the Pit! Ratchet had never felt such bloodlust as he did now, beating and beating and beating the punching bag until he began to overheat from the stress.

As Ratchet vented his frustrations on Bulkhead's punching bag, Arcee blew off her steam as she ripped across the roads at blinding speeds. Bumblebee cried hysterically in his berth room. He couldn't understand it. Not only was he distraught at Nightstalker's physical and mental condition, but Optimus . . . He sobbed harder. That wasn't the Optimus he had looked up to all his life. It wasn't right, it was all wrong, all wrong . . .

Optimus stood in the front in the medical area, optics staring listlessly at Nightstalker. Everything Ratchet had said was so true—it terrified him to his core, both the Prime and Orion quaking at what he had let happen to Nightstalker on behalf of his own selfish wants. Trembling, Optimus sank to his knees next to Nightstalker's berth, and the guilt began to infect his systems.

_ Dear Primus, why . . . How could I have been so foolish . . ._

Optimus shook. He wanted to reach and take Nightstalker's hand, press it to his face as if to stop the lubricant leaking from his optics, but even her wrists were broken. A hitch echoed in Optimus's systems. She couldn't have even tried to protect herself!

Bowing over her, Optimus began to weep bitterly, consumed with sickening resentment.

_ I could have been the one that did this to her._

He quaked with guilt and terror. It hadn't once slipped past his processor that it could have SO EASILY been he who would had raped her. His servos shook uncontrollably, and the weight on his spark increased.

_ Oh Primus . . . Megatron was the least of her worries. I could have raped her, I could have been_ _the one to do this to her, tear her to bits for the sake of my own lust—!_

He rocked, terrified of himself.

Ratchet's blows came fast and furious, and his in cycles were rapidly venting in his infuriated frenzy. The chains jangled like metal snakes above his head as the bag slung back and forth. Outraged still, there was only one thing that broke through the haze of red.

His right hand threw a powerful punch, and when his servo collided with the punching bag, he felt the metal of his fingers dent in from the sheer force behind the hit. He hissed slightly in pain, but that pain snapped him out of her fervor. Shaking, Ratchet sank to his knees and pressed his helm against the bag. He carefully flexed his fingers, feeling the slight resistance from the bends, but it didn't hamper his movements enough to require immediate medical attention.

_ I have to keep my servos. Without them, I can't repair anyone. I would be useless . . . I have to_ _keep my hands in function for them. Cliffjumper. Bulkhead. Nightstalker._

With a great effort, Ratchet calmed himself. He controlled his in cycles and stifled the rage with thoughts of his duty towards his patients waiting in the other room. He needed to get started. They were counting on him; they relied on him. He couldn't falter now. Now was not the time for unreasonable breakdowns.

But when he returned to his patients, he found his Prime on his knees, weeping broken tears.


	39. A Spark To Spark

**Author's Note:**

**Thanks for all the reviews on this! :) Also, I went on a writing spree tonight, so you'll have the next chapter tomorrow! :) The next chapter will be special because it'll only have Cliffjumper's dialogue**

* * *

><p>Optimus. Crying.<p>

More than that, weeping, sobbing. He knelt on his knees, his shoulders shook, he buried his face in his servos.

It was the first time in . . . millennia the medic had seen the Prime break down so fully.

Instead of saying anything, Ratchet merely stepped forward and placed his hand on his shoulder. That was all he could do right now. That was all he needed to do right now. Just a touch so the Prime would know he wasn't alone, that he had someone to lean on. He stood with silent comradeship as Optimus wept over Nightstalker's comatose form, letting the Prime expel the bundled up emotions that had consumed him from the inside out. He needed it. Sometimes, Ratchet wondered how he could even keep going.

It took the Prime several minutes to slow his crying and bottle up his emotions again. He still shook irregularly, and his rasp of, "R-Ratchet . . ." was rough and thick. He shook his head and took Nightstalker's servo gently with his own, his swallowing hers, and he bowed his forehead against the back of her servo.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to them. A tremble ran through him. "This is all my fault . . ."

Ratchet finally loosened his glossia. "No, it's not. You can't claim absolute fault for Nightstalker's actions. She had the free will to make her own choice, and I believe she would have gone back with or without your consent. And, in the end, it was Megatron's villainy that did this."

Optimus shook his head. "Ratchet . . . It is more than just that . . . I—" He cut off short, conflicted, and Ratchet tightened his grip on his shoulder.

"What is it, Optimus?"

A bitter laugh left him. "I am afraid of myself."

Ratchet nodded patiently. "Meaning?"

Another raw laugh spilled from the Prime, mocking and sour. "Has it not been clear enough?" he said. "Ratchet, I . . . I think I've lusted for her the second she crossed the threshold of the silo."

Ratchet arched a brow. Now that he hadn't known. And, clearly, the Prime was eaten up over this fact. Treading carefully, Ratchet asked, "Can you explain this to me?"

"What is there to explain!" Optimus snapped. He took a steadying breath, shaking his head. "I've lusted after Nightstalker when I should not have. All I want to do is protect her, teach her what she had not been taught, between right and wrong, and I'm consumed with the urge to—" He choked off a moment. "Ratchet, she looks upon me like a father-figure! And I—all I can see is what my body feels. I've already broke once! I—I nearly took her, by Primus, I nearly took her . . ." He jerked, servos clenching spasmodically. "And I'm afraid—if I couldn't keep control, if I can't keep my control—oh Primus, Ratchet, I could have been the one to do this! What if I had raped her? Continued to take her when she begged me to stop—!"

"Optimus." Ratchet cut in suddenly, shaking the consumed Prime's shoulder out of his snowballing thoughts. "First off, you never need to be afraid that you would do this to her. This is evil, and you would never do that. Have faith—I've known you almost all your life, and I am a very good judge when I say that you would never EVER do something like this to her." Optimus shivered beneath him again, but he gave a faint nod. Ratchet knelt next to him.

"Optimus," he said, "this thing of lust . . . You have to understand that you are still only a mech. If you didn't feel lust towards a femme, or a beautiful one like Nightstalker, I would be worried you had lost your humanity. It's a very normal thing to feel."

A haggard, "Then why does it feel so WRONG?" was all his answer.

"It should," Ratchet said gently. "Quite frankly, if you didn't think it felt wrong, then I would be worried." He tightened his servo, saying softly, "Optimus, Nightstalker needs a leader she can trust. Had you . . . gone through with it, you would have ended up destroying any trust and faith she's built in you. And that's the last thing you want to do right now, especially given . . . recent events." Ratchet's voice tripped over the sentence, and Optimus winced. His servos tightened on Nightstalker's. "I'm saying this for both of your sakes," Ratchet murmured. "Please, whatever it is you feel for her, let it be for the right reasons and not for simple base desire. It isn't fair to either of you. You—BOTH of you—deserve much better than that."

When Optimus could only nod to that too, Ratchet frowned a little. "Optimus . . . What DO you feel for Nightstalker? Is it love?"

Optimus shook his head, working out, "No—I don't know! I just—I don't know. No, it's not that, I just . . ." He finally took a deep breath, lifting his head to stare at the far wall. "She confuses me."

A small smile pulled at Ratchet's mouth. "A very true statement for us all . . ." He patted Optimus's shoulder before rising and taking the energon cube the commander had provided for him. "Rest easy your spark," he said softly. "Don't try to take the blame of what you did not and would not do. Now, I'm going to have to ask you to step aside, I have a lot of work to do."

Optimus's lips twitched a little before the smile faded, and with a last, apologizing squeeze of Nightstalker's servo, he left the determined medic to his own design. Instead, he went to the back, feet trudging heavier than he wanted as the weight of the world settled on his shoulders. He stopped in front of Bumblebee's berth room door. Lifting a wearied servo, he knocked.

There was no answer. Optimus vented before pushing open the door. As he did, a short scream of *Leave me alone!* cut through the berth room.

Optimus stood in the doorway, afraid to move anymore because Bumblebee had pulled his weapons on him. The scout's eyes were dilated extremely tight in his agitation, but Optimus didn't back away.

"Bumblebee—" he started to say softly.

*Get out!* the scout shrieked. His guns hummed with the threat to shoot. *Get out! Get out! Get out! Leave me alone!* With another shrill cry, his weapons transformed back into his servos, and he threw himself down on his berth, distraught. *It's your fault! Get out! I don't want to see you!*

Optimus stood a moment with slacked hands. His shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

*You should be!* Bumblebee shouted back. He sat back up suddenly, tight optics dancing with tears. *You should be! You should—You should just—Just—Get out! I don't want you here! Leave me alone!*

Optimus shook his head and took a step into the room. "Bumblebee, I'm not leaving. Not until you understand that I—that I am . . . sorry . . ."

*I don't care!* he cried out. He threw himself back down on the berth. *You let her go! You let her—Megatron never cared about her, how could you let her go! I hate—I—I—* The scout choked on his words, unable to say it, and another shrill shriek was muffled into his berth.

Optimus turned his face away, wrestling with his inner demons before he took a breath and whispered, "I hate myself too." The scout looked up. "I . . . let my selfish desires get in the way of what I knew was better. My judgment was impaired, and because of it, Nightstalker's energon now stains my hands." Optimus took several steps forward, and he knelt at Bumblebee's berth side. "Bumblebee . . . I know saying that I am sorry will not cover the damage that has been done, but . . . I beg that you please forgive me, and allow me the chance to never fail you again."

Bumblebee sat up again, blinked wide, innocent tears that tore the Prime's spark out. Finally, in a tiny voice, he asked *Optimus?*

"Yes?"

The tears began to slip down his face. *Is—Is Nightstalker . . . going to die? Is she—Is she going to—Oh, Optimus!*

With a weak cry, Bumblebee threw himself into the great Prime's arms and cried, hugging him so tightly he thought he'd never get away. Optimus wrapped him in a bear hug, and he found the only thing he could say was, "Ratchet won't let her leave us that easily." He leant what little strength he had left to his scout, comforting him in the privacy of his berth room.

* * *

><p>It was late when Optimus woke. There was nothing in particular that set him off as the third day from Nightstalker's rape began, a mere two in the morning. Troubled, Optimus rose and began to walk, trying to work away his unease with a little physical movement. He could sleep later. Right now, he just felt like there was a certain medic who wasn't taking care of himself in his drive to save his patients.<p>

Optimus walked back into the main floor of the silo just in time to see Ratchet pinch his brows tiredly, rub his face alert, and proceed to scan the unconscious Nightstalker—most likely for the umpteenth time.

Optimus walked forward and placed a hand on Ratchet's shoulder. The medic didn't even glance up from his readings and said in a clipped tone, "Yes?"

The Prime's body gave a slight depression at his focused CMO. "Ratchet, it is much too late for you to continue working. Your systems need rest as well."

Ratchet made an unconvinced and brusque sound as he brushed past Optimus to his computers. "I can manage. My patients, however, cannot. I am not going to rest while two are on the brink of death and the third running the risk of a severe infection that would either cause his death or at least an amputation."

An aggrieved rumble passed through Optimus for his stress. "Ratchet, please," he said gently. "If you do not take care of yourself, you will not be able to take care of them. At least allow me to take over your duties for a few hours of recharge."

Ratchet rubbed his face again, and he looked back to Bulkhead and Nightstalker before he said, "Optimus, you really need your rest as well."

"One night is not going to hurt me," he said stolidly.

"But—"

"I'll do it."

Both the Prime and the medic's helms looked over to Cliffjumper whose optics flicked on. Ratchet approached him, kneeling, asking, "How are you feeling?"

Cliffjumper blinked before taking a deep in cycle. "Like I want to watch over Nightstalker."

Ratchet set his jaw stubbornly, running a scan on the mech's ruined arm and leg. "I meant physical, Cliffjumper. Answer me straight."

He gave a vague shrug. "Like Pit, how do you expect me to feel? But I'm awake. And I won't be going back to sleep anytime soon, so . . . let me watch Nightstalker, and you two can get your rest."

After Ratchet buzzed about his head like a worried mother, he deemed that Cliffjumper was functional enough and promised he would get to work on his arm and leg as soon as he could. Cliffjumper just waved off the strung-up medic and watched as the Prime quite literally escorted Ratchet to his berth room because they all knew how the medic would turn back halfway down the halls.

After a few minutes of silence to which Cliffjumper merely mulled to himself with thoughts, he scooted himself across the floor to Nightstalker's side. He trembled. Pressing his good arm's hand to his face, he wrestled on the inside with what he had seen and let happen before he took a deep breath and stretched his neck up. He leaned his back against her berth and rested his servo on top of hers, listening to the beeps of her and Bulkhead's spark beats.

Then, he began to talk.


	40. The Torturer

**Author's Note:**

**Muse for Cliffjumper's dialogue: _Hello__Evanescence**

* * *

><p>"Hello. I, ah . . . I think I owe you an apology. I mean, I owe a lot of people apologies . . . but I really ought to give you one. After all, I—I've lied to you. Pit, it hasn't been just you. I lied to Arcee. And . . . I lied to myself.<p>

"I think, from the first second I saw the humanity in my torturer . . . I think that's when I started to fall in love with you. I don't know why. I told myself I just pitied you. I mean, having to live a crappy life like that, I just played it off. Even when I felt my spark hurt when you were shunned by everyone in the base those first months . . . I took up for you, sure, but I told myself it was pity. You were just so pathetic, that was it. And, the time when I really thought I had lost it was when you went flying for the first time.

"Ah, Primus . . . You were so beautiful, Nightstalker. I'd never seen you so happy before. The energon was flushed in your cheeks, you were smiling, and Pit, the dark skies and stars as the backdrop for your alluring beauty . . . I lost myself then. I know I did. But did I let myself believe it? No. I—I told myself that it was just a flutter of the spark, any mech would have felt it after seeing you like that. You were my torturer! I told myself I was being stupid, I loved Arcee, there was no way I could feel that for my former torturer, especially since I was still scared of you at that point. So I told myself that lie, and I continued to string Arcee along like a fool. Pit, she even noticed it . . . She always accused me of how much I talked about you, how often you crossed my mind. I saw you in everything. She was jealous, because she knew whatever I had felt for her was gone. I was so infatuated with you I couldn't even see it . . .

"I don't know why Arcee stayed. I think, maybe, she was lying to herself, too. Pit, I can't even begin to understand what she was thinking, but I think it had to be something along the lines that she couldn't believe she was getting pushed aside for some cowardly, bi-polar, Decepticon torturer. I mean, Arcee's practically perfect in every way! She's honest, beautiful, strong, a warrior, and she's Optimus's go-to gal. She's got it all, and she didn't want to lose the one thing that mattered to her the most—a mech that understood her and that she could share herself with. So she just hid the problem of you under the rug and swallowed my lies while I kept stuffing them down everyone's throat.

"It wasn't until recently that I realized how stupid I was being. I passed off a mission with Arcee to go rescue you from the Decepticon warship, and that's when it really pissed Arcee off. Bumblebee was the better pick to rescue you, of course, I knew it, she knew it, Pit, we all knew it. But I still persisted, and that's when she called me out. She accused me of being in love with you, and it . . . it scared me. I didn't want to believe it, and I was scared because I didn't think I had what it would take to . . . love you. Take care of you. To teach you that . . . that whatever it was you had with Megatron wasn't love. I was scared I would fail you, and I'd only hurt you.

"So, yeah, Arcee and I are officially over. I think we were over months ago. We just kept all our infighting exactly that—IN. You guys just saw us as a couple that kept all our happy moments to ourselves, when in reality it was always fighting, and always over you. After Airachnid, we never romped in the sheets again. I barely touched her. I just did it to get her over that hump because I knew what she needed to hear. I think that's all it was with her. I never really loved her, I just never had the spark to turn her down because I could see how broken she was and how she needed someone to lean on . . .

"That's all I have to say about that. But you . . . Oh Primus, Nightstalker, when I saw you on the warship, in Megatron's berth room on that pole . . . I lost my spark to you again. It wasn't just how much I had wanted to take you right in Megatron's berth. No, it was . . . that graceful beauty, the strength, the hidden talents that you hide from sight because you're ashamed of them. Primus, you were beautiful . . . and I knew, despite what flaws you carried, I wanted you to be mine. I didn't want anyone else to touch you. I SEETHED with jealousy that Megatron had touched you.

"And . . . that leads me to this confession. Because, the reason I'm apologizing isn't just for what happened to you. I know that sucks like Pit too, considering . . . your condition . . . but a sorry isn't going to fix that. No matter how much I apologize. But I'm sorry that . . . I couldn't let myself see how much I cared for you sooner. I keep thinking that . . . that if I just—if I just had said something, would it have brought your mind away from Megatron? Would you have still pined after him, or could I have captured your spark and made you pine after me? If you hadn't felt the need to return to him . . . could I have loved you enough then to save you before now?

" . . . I don't know. Maybe it's just me trying to think of how I could have stopped this just to torture myself more. Heh, after all, you do seem to have that effect on me . . . torturing me. First my body, then my processor, and now my spark . . .

" . . . So. I don't know how long I've been out. I just woke up. But, judging on how low Ratchet's running on energon and how dead he looked on his feet, I'd give us two or three days. I'm sure the Doc wouldn't have stopped for anything. And, I think I ought to let you know that Bulkhead's on the berth with us. He's . . . comatose, like you. There's a big hole in his back. I don't know what happened, but I hope he pulls through too . . . No wonder Ratch is stressed . . .

" . . . Primus, N-Nights . . . I can barely look at you . . . You're so . . . s-so banged up and—and ripped up and broken . . . B-But you look a lot better now, I promise . . . R-Ratchet's gonna fix you up. He's gonna fix you up good. He's got m-magic hands, y-y'know? Magic hands, he can fix anything . . .

" . . .

" . . . And you know? I hate him. Megatron. By Primus, I hate him! When I—When I think about what he did to you . . . Pit . . . Nightstalker, that's a sight I'm going to carry to my GRAVE. I'll never forget it, and it's always going to haunt me. I pity you for how you're going to feel when you wake up . . . But Nightstalker, when I think of Megatron— . . . I'm going to kill him. By the All Spark, I'm going to kill him! N-Nights . . . I can't stand the thought of it. I get—I get so ANGRY that I just want to . . . I don't know . . . STRANGLE someone! I can't stand the thought of it! I get so angry I feel like my optics are bleeding Decepticon red, and I get this uncontrollable urge to hurt someone, something, preferably Deceptions, or better, Megatron. I just—I hate him! And it's like this dark part of me I never knew existed just wants to do to him exactly what he did to you—only worse. By Primus, ten times worse! I want to do so many bad things to him—

"And it terrifies me. I'm afraid . . . I'm afraid that . . . if you don't make it . . . or even if you DO make it . . . I won't be able to satisfy that lust for revenge, no matter what I do. I'm afraid . . . I'll lose myself in that anger . . .

" . . .

"So. Yeah . . . I uh, just wanted to get some things out there. I don't know what I'm going to do yet. And really, this silence is killing me. You know I hate the silence. You—heh, you on the other hand are probably dreaming and wondering who in Pit won't shut up. But you ought to know that it's me by now. Sorry, Nights, but I'm not going to shut up. I mean . . . the silence is really creeping me out, and I think my talking is all that's keeping me sane right now. I've got this really bad urge to just throw myself over you and cry, and I think you'd appreciate it if I didn't do that. Especially since Ratchet-the-Hatchet would have a cow if I messed up the tiniest detail in his work . . .

"Anyways, I'm talking to you because for some reason I'm thinking like a child as if it's somehow going to keep you here. You know . . . so you don't fade away. You've got to have something to hold on to, so just keep listening to me and just stick with me, all right? Stay tough, Nightstalker, stick with me, it's going to be all right . . . After all, I've really got to teach you how to defend yourself. Maybe that was partly my fault, after all, you couldn't defend yourself . . . Though I guess not many ever can against Megatron . . .

"So . . . um . . . Ah, Primus, I'm yawning. I haven't even been awake that long, I don't think . . . My chronometer is off, it's gotta be. It's telling me it's one in the afternoon. That's a bug I'll have to inform Ratchet of when you and Bulkhead start recovering . . . And Primus slag it, I need some . . . some pain killers or something, scrap my arm and leg hurt . . .

"Scrap, I AM falling asleep . . . Hey, Commander? I'd really—sorry for yawning, but I'd appreciate it if you could come . . . take over here. I'm dozing off . . . Yeah, sure. I know. Yes sir.

"Optimus is going to take over for me, I can't keep my optics open. You just hang tough, okay? I can't lose you, not now. Heh, after all, I didn't rescue you from that ship just to let you die . . .

" . . . Nights?

" . . .

"I'm sorry."

" . . .

" . . .

" . . .

_ " . . . Forgive me . . ."_


	41. Spark Beat Promise

**Author's Note:**

**Written while listening to _Diamonds From Sierra Leone_ by Kanye West, just love the dark, creepy sound of it.**

**ERMERGERD RATCHET I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! 3**

* * *

><p>"Miko, I said no."<p>

"But I want to see Bulkhead!"

Ratchet pinched his brow, the human's petulant and demanding tone not helping his massive processor ache. Resting his servos against the computer, Ratchet muttered, "Miko, I told you. Bulkhead is doing fine. He's stable, and he is going to regain his strength. I can truthfully tell you he is on the mend."

"But I want to SEE him!" There was a small shuffle on the other end of the phone. "Look, Ratchet, it's not the same as you just telling me he's fine, I need to SEE him, TOUCH him, and tell him myself that I'm going to be there when he wakes up . . . because I WILL be there when he wakes up!"

Ratchet rubbed behind his neck before looking over in the direction of his medical area. Cliffjumper sat staring blankly at the wall, seated on the edge of Nightstalker's berth. Cliffjumper worried him. From the two days he had woken up, he really refused to talk about anything. And Cliffjumper refusing to talk . . . That alone could worry Ratchet. He couldn't imagine what was going on in the mech's processor . . . Across the room, Optimus and Arcee were talking vigorously in undertones. Ratchet vented sharply.

"All right, but ONLY if you promise that you be quiet. We've all got enough on our minds, and I don't need the added stress. Got it?"

"Got it." There was a pause. "Um . . . Ratchet?"

He sighed impatiently. "Yes?"

She paused again. "Um . . . we, um . . . Jack and Raf and me . . . We want to see Nightstalker too."

Ratchet felt himself hinge up. He looked over there again, and he couldn't see Nightstalker from the angle, but he knew what she looked like. Primus, he knew exactly what she looked like. Her hips, shoulders, and wrists were still broken as he hadn't been able to get to repairing them yet with everything else on his plate. They were at as natural an angle as he could possibly get them, but it was clear they weren't in the perfectly correct positions. The kids would notice. And they would notice Megatron's claw marks over her wings and her chassis. He could only be thankful Nightstalker was on her back and they wouldn't see the claw marks on her aft plating. Her pelvic region looked normal, but the damage to the inside was catastrophic. When he got to working on her again, he would have to kick them back out.

He passed a servo over his face before muttering, "All right, but ONLY until I get to working on her again! You will leave when I tell you to leave, and you won't ask any questions."

"What's the big deal?" Miko interrupted angrily. "What's so bad that you guys won't tell us? How bad is she? What happened?"

"She's hurt," Ratchet said in a clipped tone. "You'll accept that and not ask any questions or I won't let you come."

"Fine! Jeez! Have Bee pick us up, okay? And Jack wants to talk to Arcee."

Ratchet huffed. "Fine."

Just as he hung up, he heard Arcee scoff in irritation and turn sharply in her heel and stalk away from Optimus. The Prime lifted his voice, calling only, "Arcee—please! . . . Please."

The femme stopped. She rolled her head down with a scowl, and her servos clenched, but her optics danced a little with suppressed passion. Finally, her perked back struts drooped, and she murmured, "All right. Just . . . try not to frag it up again, all right?"

The Prime's jaw worked. "I won't," he whispered in promise.

There was a small moment Ratchet let them have before he said, "Arcee, Jack wants you to pick him up."

She looked up sharply. "What? You're letting them come here?"

A sigh decompressed tiredly from the medic, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the processor ache to leave. "Yes. They're worried, and I've put them off long enough. It's either that or they'll sneak in, and I don't want to run the risks of them seeing what has actually happened to her. She can pass for a rough fight right now. We'll tell them the truth—Megatron got her, beat her to slag. That's it. After all, they know she'd been taken captive on the _NEMESIS_ and Cliffjumper had gone to rescue her. It's plausible enough."

Arcee shuffled, uncomfortable with not telling the truth, but when she looked over at Nightstalker's unresponsive form, she nodded. As she transformed down, Ratchet pinged Bumblebee in the back that the kids wanted picked up, and when he left too, Optimus excusing himself and leaving as well, Ratchet sighed again. He passed a servo over his face, all alone with his patients.

Cliffjumper was patched up. His wounds were on the mend, though he wouldn't be able to transform for quite some time and walking would be an awkward hobble as his leg would take time to heal before he could put his full weight on it. Bulkhead's back was completely welded over, and while Ratchet waited on him to wake from his comatose sleep, he worried about the trauma in his central neural conduit. The Tox-En exposure caused system-wide shut down on a submicronic level, so once Bulkhead had gained some strength back, he operated on him. He was on the mend with an energon cube hooked to him through an IV. All he needed to do now was wake up.

Nightstalker, on the other hand, was a totally different story. A trauma induced by sheer shock of her systems had caused a system-wide shutdown of her central neural conduit as well, but she was recovering quicker as the effect of the Tox-En had lingered with Bulkhead. Her motor lines were slow to recover and sensitive as they were swelled and puckered. Her T-Cog was in one piece, so her transformation sequence wouldn't be hampered, but Ratchet feared that if he couldn't get the infection blooming in her motor lines to heal, she would suffer either a permanent pain every time she transformed or would completely lose her motor lines and never be able to transform again.

Her coolant tanks had been removed, repaired, inserted again, and filled with the liquid that cooled her systems and kept the fever down as first priority. Fluid lines were pinched together, letting the coolant flow smoothly. He had yet to oil her hydraulic pistons, but something like that could be put off for more pressing things. He carefully monitored her spark and soothed it with a thick, medicated energon to allow the scratches to heal over. For all his trouble, her spark always beat steadily, albeit if weakly at times.

He had opened her chest plating to find the energon sacks ripped to shreds. He cleaned the area and closed the plating, and he wouldn't open it again for weeks. Her "breasts" as humans so coined the sacks, would again fill with life-nourishing liquid and it would take weeks for the film to cover it thick enough to even be opened again. It would take months before they would recover to their full strength, the same thick, waxy surface that protected the spark.

He would get to working on her broken shoulders next. Still, he couldn't do that in the short time that the humans would get there, so he merely opened Nightstalker's interfacing plating—of which he had replaced—and again inspected her valve. The damage was catastrophic. The neural lines had been so completely ravaged that he hadn't been able to salvage them. He didn't have the bio mechanics to heal that kind of damage. Her nerve endings were gone.

She wouldn't ever feel anything in her valve again. Ratchet wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

Instead, Ratchet walked past Cliffjumper who was deep in withdrawal and went down the halls of the base to where the kids had left the bucket and cleaning supplies. The humans took a great deal of pride in cleaning their vehicular partners. Ratchet filled the bucket and took the tiny rag before returning to Nightstalker's side.

Then, dipping the cloth into the water, he began to wipe her down. The dust coated her nearly from head to foot because he'd only taken the time to clear away her broken armor and enough of an area that he could have a clean working space.

As he did so, his mind drifted to Wheeljack and Miko. He wasn't impressed with their revenge stunt on Hardshell. The peril they put themselves in was inconceivable in his mind, and there was no way to repair crushed human. He could only be thankful that Wheeljack had the cogs to leave and tend his own injuries instead of adding more weight to the already stretched thin medic.

His optics flicked up to Cliffjumper. He still just stared at the wall. He was still in shock, that much Ratchet deduced, but he also worried. He knew there was nothing Cliffjumper could be doing but either reliving the horror of what happened or thinking. And, if he was thinking, Ratchet worried he was thinking along the lines of Wheeljack and Miko—

Revenge.

Pit, it had crossed his mind once or twice, but he was old enough to realize revenge never helped anything. But Cliffjumper . . . As Ratchet's servo passed the rag over Nightstalker's forearm, his optics flicked back up to Cliffjumper. He'd never seen the mech like this. Even in the face of some of the darkest things, things that would shatter the soul of even the strongest mech, he had seen Cliffjumper take it to the chin and move on. That was just how Cliffjumper rolled, but now . . . Something was really messing with his processor. And while Ratchet stressed over Cliffjumper's wellbeing, he knew he had to give the mech time. The only way he would open up was of his own accord.

As Ratchet washed one of Nightstalker's peds, he felt a small hitch echo in his systems as it suddenly struck him how tiny and breakable she was. His own servo even swallowed her ankle, and it rotated so easily it scared him because he knew he had the strength to snap that ankle. Even Arcee could. If he put his mind to it, he wouldn't put it past Jack that the human had enough strength to hurt Nightstalker if he really chose. He couldn't quite understand how she had managed all of these years without someone to protect her . . .

He ignored his aching spark. He dunked the rag back in the water, and he moved restlessly to her helm, digging the cloth under the edges of her helm to remove the dust from the cave. A couple extra drops of salty water dripped on her cheek. Irritably, Ratchet reached up and wiped his cheeks before setting his jaw stubbornly and breathing steady in cycles.

A vision of Optimus carrying Nightstalker assaulted his processor. His servos began to shake. Primus, there had been so much energon spilled everywhere that she had been more blue than black—the human-coined phrase "beaten black and blue" came to mind, and a bitter laugh choked in his throat. More than beaten. Raped within an inch of her life. His servos shook so hard he almost couldn't finish. His jaw ticked with suppressed emotion flooding to the surface. She had been so broken he almost didn't register that it was her, mangled and gutted and cold as death—

A harsh cry ripped from his vocals. Ratchet dropped the rag with hunching shoulders, and his servos tore at his helm as he turned away, crying out shortly again.

_I can't do this! I can't do this!_

He staggered to the side, pressing his palms flat against the wall to hold himself up as he trembled.

_I can't do it, Primus, I can't . . . It's too much, she's falling apart at the seams, and there's nothing I can do . . . I haven't even begun to think about how this is going to affect her processor! Primus, Primus, Primus, please . . ._

He sank into the wall, the strength he had left draining from him. Tears began to sting his optics, and his servos fisted.

_At this rate she may never transform again. She'll never feel the overload of an interface again, a REAL overload! One with love and passion, not lust and domination. I'm killing her of the flying she loves and the chance to feel a kind of infatuation that's more than just protoform deep . . ._

His spark throbbed in pain. He knew Optimus had what it took to cherish this femme. He knew she needed someone like that to show her the true side of love—a tender touch, a compassionate heart, and the patience of a saint.

_No. No, I can't let up now. I've done too much to quit on her right now . . ._ Ratchet leaned up, pressing his helm against the unforgiving wall. _Get yourself together, Ratchet. There's too much at stake here to just lie down and accept defeat. Nightstalker needs me._

Even as he felt the stress eating away at his insides, he glanced down to Nightstalker who was still in her comatose sleep. His spark melted and agonized.

In the seclusion of the main room of the silo, Cliffjumper not paying any more attention to him than the air, Ratchet knelt, taking her helm in both his servos and pressing his forehead against hers.

"I'm sorry," he whispered softly. His grip tightened. "I'm here for you. I won't give up on you, I promise. I will do EVERYTHING in my power to save you. I won't give up, I promise, just . . . Promise me that you aren't going to give up."

The silence that answered him depressed him, but then he realized it wasn't silent. Her spark beat chirped cheerfully, consistently from his computers, and his tears began to spill over. He pressed his lips to Nightstalker's forehead, and he rested his face against hers, silent tears dripping.

A car engine woke him from his despair. Standing up, Ratchet quickly wiped his face and Nightstalker's before picking up the rag and setting it aside with the bucket, steadying his in cycles. Within an instant, he had covered up all his emotions.

Bumblebee and Arcee drove up to the edge of the medical area, letting out the children before transforming up. Bumblebee's optics kept jumping to and from Nightstalker because looking at her was painful. Arcee's lips pressed into a grim line.

Miko bolted right for Bulkhead while Raf and Jack stopped at Nightstalker. With a little help from Jack, Raf had scrambled up on the berth and stopped near her helm. His little fingers reached out to touch her face.

"Nights?"

Raf knelt and hugged around her neck, burying his face into her to hide his tears. Jack's throat worked as he looked over her, and his eyes lingered over her hips before he looked up to the unconscious Bulkhead. He put his hand on Raf before he looked up to Ratchet.

"What's the damage?"

What was the damage. Too extensive on Nightstalker that he could even elaborate on. "Bulkhead's neural conduit took massive damage. The shock spread through his systems, and I fear it has been affecting his legs. Levels are low, and I fear his comatose sleep is only adding to the problem. When he wakes up, I fear he may have to relearn how to walk."

Jack winced slightly. He dropped his head, jaw tightening. "And . . . Nightstalker?"

"It's apparent I still have work to do," Ratchet said bitterly before he could stop himself. He scowled and looked away. "Her motor lines are inflamed and she's still feverish. I'm doing all I can to control her temperature. And, if her motor lines don't heal . . . she may not ever transform again."

Raf looked up with watery eyes, and he took off his glasses to wipe his eyes. "B-But I thought . . . I thought transforming was because of the T-Cog?"

Ratchet turned his back to them, unable to look them in their faces or let them see the unbridled passion raging across his own features. "The motor lines are a vital part as well. Without them, we wouldn't move, wouldn't contort as we do and transform."

Miko stood, keeping her hand on Bulkhead as she turned to look at the medic's back. "So Bulkhead's going to be okay?"

"Yes."

"And Nightstalker?"

A deafening pause.

"I don't know."

Jack's eyes trailed over the scratches on Nightstalker's wings. Ratchet pressed a stressed palm to his forehead before muttering, "I need an energon cube," and left brusquely, bucket and rag with him.

He went to their energon storage and grabbed a cube before closing it. One servo braced against the door to their stash and the other trembled. The liquid blue energy quivered in the cube. He drained it in one long draught like it was high grade, wishing it was high grade.

However, when he went back to head to the silo again with the bucket refilled with cold water to help tame Nightstalker's raging fever, Jack stood in the hallway, blocking his way. The human's throat worked.

"Ratchet, what really happened?"

The medic didn't flinch. "Megatron attacked when Nightstalker and Cliffjumper were trying to escape the _NEMESIS_."

"I know that. What did he do to her that she ended up like that?"

Ratchet gave an indefinite gesture. "I don't know. I wasn't present at the time of the attack, and Cliffjumper refuses to speak about it."

"Ratchet," Jack stressed tightly, "I'm not stupid. Her hips are broken. Why?" When the medic gave the slightest hesitation, Jack whispered with a pale face, "Ratchet . . . I'm not stupid . . . I just . . . Need to know . . ." When Ratchet couldn't bring himself to say it, Jack began to shake a little, gasping as he tried to swallow the force of the truth. "God, please no . . . He didn't really . . . rape her, did he?"

The handle of the bucket snapped in Ratchet's clenching servo. The bucket fell with a crash and spilled across the floor.

Neither male paid attention to it. Instead, Jack fought the bile in his throat as he thought about the implications of that statement, the sheer size difference between Nightstalker and Megatron, and how ruined Nightstalker was. Though his stomach rolled, he controlled the sickening nausea and rasped, "Ratchet . . . How much is really wrong with her? Under the surface?"

The medic closed his optics. "Rape of that magnitude . . ." Tears started to sting his optics again, so he looked up, letting them pool beneath his lids. "Jack, I'm lucky she's hung on as long as she had. I thought at first that Megatron's rape had killed her for sure."

"SHE WAS RAPED?"

Ratchet's optics snapped open to see a horrified Miko with her arms crossed over her chest with sympathy fear of what rape could do to her. She shook, eyes wide at what the product of her eavesdropping had given her. Her shriek carried across the silo.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE WAS RAPED!"

Miko turned and bolted from the hallway and back into the main room of the silo. Ratchet and Jack followed, Ratchet shouting, "Miko, wait!" However, Miko just stood at the foot of Nightstalker's berth, shaking in horror and blanched white as she took in Nightstalker's injuries with a different insight. Raf's brown eyes looked up at Ratchet.

"Ratchet?" he asked in a quivering voice. His eyes were dark—he knew it was something horrible. "What's rape?"

Ratchet's in cycles seized at the boy's innocent question for something so heinous. Instead, it was Cliffjumper that finally loosened his fused vocals to say, "Nothing you need to know."

Raf's lips pressed. "W-What do you mean?"

"You don't need to know!" Cliffjumper barked. He didn't look at the boy, but he regretted his sharp tone. Miko suddenly glared up at him.

"And why did you stop it!" she shouted angrily.

Cliffjumper winced before he glared blackly at the human. Her eyes widened, and she took a step back. "I had a gun to my head," he said shortly. His servos fisted. "And I'm starting to think I should have taken the bullet. She's obviously suffered for everything I haven't done, so slag like me doesn't deserve to live, right?" He slammed his fists down on either side of Miko, making her scream shortly in fear as he bellowed, "So DON'T push me, Miko! Next thing I know is that I'll have actually killed myself instead of just thinking about it!"

She cowered, shaking and gasping in fear at his sudden snap—and there it went. The careful control he had kept over the past two days. Cliffjumper stood, shivering violently at the remembrance of the revolting scene and in fear at himself, afraid of where his own train of thought would lead him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. He began to stagger a halting walk towards the hall, but Ratchet extended a servo in front of him.

"Cliffjumper. Where are you going?"

"A wash," he said. "I need to get the dust of that cave off of me . . ."

After a moment of hesitation, the medic let him go, and his worried optics followed the scarred warrior down the hall.

The walk to the showers was one of the longest Cliffjumper had taken in his life. His leg wanted to nearly buckle beneath him it hurt so much to put the slightest weight down on it, but he doggedly kept on, waning to wash himself of the dust that clung to him like a cloud. Once in the showers, he found Optimus brooding tensely beneath a sharp spray. The Prime looked up to him with hollow optics, and Cliffjumper gave a vague shrug his way before joining him and locking the demons back in his spark.

The heat of the spray was only a minor soothing thing. Cliffjumper turned his face up to the water, venting sharply and tried to prepare an apology for Miko and Raf.

"Cliffjumper, I need to speak to you."

The warrior gave a shrug. "Sir?"

He tilted his neck, letting the water run down his neck and into the cracks of his armor. "Cliffjumper," Optimus said heavily, "I have a confession to make . . ."

"I'm not a priest."

"But you need to hear this." Cliffjumper shrugged vaguely again, ducking his head and letting the water swallow him whole until there was nothing left inside his soul. He vented, trying to relax and ease the kinks that knotted up with stress.

"Cliffjumper . . . I allowed Nightstalker to go to Megatron."

He froze. Cliffjumper slowly looked over at Optimus.

" . . . What?"

Optimus's throat worked, but he nodded. "Yes. I allowed her to go to Megatron. I thought . . . that perhaps she could bring back my brother." When Cliffjumper just stared, seemingly frozen, Optimus felt prompted to add, "Cliffjumper, I know this was wrong. I can only ask that you forgive me for—"

"You pitted Nightstalker's life against Megatronus?" Cliffjumper interrupted shortly. He turned to fully face the Prime, optics blazing and dancing. After guilty hesitation, Optimus nodded. "Is he that important to you? Is Megatronus THAT important that you'd bet our lives against him!" Cliffjumper began to shake, so full of pent up passions that he almost couldn't see straight. "Is he so important that the family you have now isn't enough for you? You've gotta stop living in the then, Optimus, and start living in the NOW!"

Cliffjumper's in takes seized sharply, and now that he had gotten started, it was all spilling out, unbridled and desperate. "Oh Primus, Optimus, you didn't SEE it! You just saw how she was left—Oh Primus, the energon! She looked like a child she was so small in his fist and the way those thrusts decimated her so gruesomely that he might as well have just shoved a pole inside her and beaten her to death from the inside out! And she screamed and screamed and begged and cried and I just stood there like a miss-clock glitch and let him do it—!"

Cliffjumper choked on his tears he was crying so hard, servos curled into tight fists and shaking so hard he almost couldn't breathe. "He OVERLOADED in her, Optimus!" he screamed. "Right in front of me, fucking her like she was a slut, and he choked her so hard I thought he'd break her neck—"

His servos covered his face with a distraught cry, and he pitched to his knees, trembling and sobbing. "And I just watched it! Primus—the sound of things breaking—the snapping, the smacking, the energon bleeding from her everywhere—and he raped her spark—oh Primus! Her spark! He—He—Her spark—oh Primus!"

At this point, his words were unintelligible in his broken hysteria, and Optimus tried to placate him without luck. His crying and screaming was only broken by him purging his tanks in remembrance, and by the time Optimus had taken his first step to fetch Ratchet the medic was in the showers and ordered him out. Optimus left, and he could hear Cliffjumper's disturbed screams carrying over the silo.

Ratchet took this time to get Cliffjumper to speak. He let him scream and cry all his rage until he was weak and limp on the floor before he asked him questions, digging for his grievances and soothing them. More rage. More disconnection. More despair. More weeping.

The cold shower sprayed over them, cooling Cliffjumper's systems feverish with passions.

* * *

><p>Bulkhead woke up. Miko was ecstatic, but the former Wrecker didn't want to listen to his CMO and refused to believe his legs were nearly lamed from trauma.<p>

The first thing he did was fall. The second thing he did was get up and sit back down. The third was to hold back all his broken spark so he wouldn't scare Miko with his tears.

Miko enthusiastically took over Bulkhead's recovery help as much as she could, helping him exercise and being the cheerleader the former Wrecker needed to keep going. His rock of strength, ten times smaller than himself.

Oddly, Bulkhead held no anger towards Hardshell, only relief that he had made it and frustration at his disability. The green mech didn't look back on his woes, but focused on his present woes, unable to see into the future to where he would recover.

Optimus spoke with him. Bulkhead was shocked, but more disappointed than angry. He said he was so tired he just couldn't find it in him to be angry. He trusted the leader to give him a second chance and asked him to apologize to Nightstalker.

Optimus promised he would.

And so things went in the base. The Decepticons seemed quiet at this point, and it was a good respite that they all needed to gather their bearings and steel their broken will. Cliffjumper was quieter, but apologized to Miko and Raf thoroughly and moved on as well as he could. Arcee was a surprising rock of strength for him. He didn't know what to think that she was helping him after the way they had broken off.

Instead, the week stretched. At various times, Nightstalker would suffer terrible, comatose nightmares, scream and thrash as much as her broken body could. Her fever would wan towards recovery and then she would slip back twice as worse. Ratchet stressed, but bottled it all up again, vowing not to snap again. Nightstalker's motor lines stayed inflamed, and Ratchet managed to salvage the parts in her shoulders to fix them again. It felt like he was repairing a human—she would have to work the strength back into her arms. She was as weak as a newborn sparkling.

As Ratchet finished working on her other shoulder, checking both for functionality, Cliffjumper watched impassively as Nightstalker was slowly put back together.

Cliffjumper swallowed as he looked down on Nightstalker's still form. "H-Hey Ratch . . ." When his voice was naught but a hoarse whisper, he cleared his throat in the effort to speak louder, but it didn't help. His throat felt tight. "Do you . . . do you think she'll ever wake up?"

There was a pause. And then, quick and sharp as he could count on Ratchet, "Don't be ridiculous. She will wake up. Just give her a little time."

"I've given her time," Cliffjumper rasped back. "It's been a week. Not a stir. I—I need something. SOMETHING, Ratchet, anything . . . She's so still I feel like I'm staring at death . . ." His voice seized harshly a moment. He shook his helm, dropping his face into his servos.

"Then listen."

At his words, Cliffjumper lent his audio receptors but didn't hear anything in the silent silo except . . . That lump in his throat brought the stinging tears forth.

Ratchet didn't need to say anything more and bent over Nightstalker as he double checked his work on her, but Cliffjumper wept softly, tears seeping from between his fingers at the steady beat of the machine.

Her spark beat. It beat full and strong through the machine, consistently. The beeping cut through the silence as a promise, and Cliffjumper grasped hold of it, spark reaching out.

_You make it for me, Nights. Promise me you won't give up._

Her spark beat back at him.


	42. Daughter to Father

**Author's Note:**

**SONG OF INSPIRATION oh my God, not a fan of Lindsey Lohan, but her song, "Confessions of a Broken Heart" inspired half this chapter.**

**And, besides that, I wanted to cry while writing this, but I think that's because I'm such a daddy's girl...**

* * *

><p>Things in the Autobot base moved on slowly. Bulkhead struggled to regain the strength in his legs and was forbidden to transform until he had gained some strength. Cliffjumper met the same demise of being unable to transform because of his bum leg and arm. He hobbled along much better than Bulkhead did, though. Arcee talked to Cliffjumper a lot with Jack, and they slowly pulled the warrior out of his prickly shell of silence. Arcee even talked to Miko, letting her know of what had originally happened with her and Cliffjumper so the girl could help deal with Bulkhead's struggling recovery.<p>

Dissent between the troops and Optimus lulled beneath the surface. No one voice anything, and the bots were a little worried, but Optimus's heartfelt apologies helped sway their sparks. Optimus also took on much of the energon scouting missions. It helped him clear his mind and let the others rest. He felt they needed it, and he felt he needed the solitude to keep his processor clear.

The humans were constant support. Miko was a determined, cheerful cheerleader for Bulkhead and helped him through anything and everything. Raf was solid in keeping near Nightstalker, sometimes talking to her, sometimes just doing his homework. Raf and Bumblebee supported each other as best buds would, each using the other as their crutch.

Today, Nightstalker's fever had finally dipped to a healthy level, finally giving the medic the breathing room he so sought. It was a small victory compared to the amount of damage she still carried, but it was one Ratchet took to spark. He had to. He couldn't waver for anything, and so he took whatever could bolster his confidence. As he sat down on his other empty medical berth, he sighed heavily, passing a servo over his face to soothe the worry lines away. As he did so, he felt a ring in his processor. He frowned.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Ratchet," he heard the voice over the line say. "It's June Darby. I'm on my lunch break right now, so I thought this would be a good time to chat."

Ratchet paused, blinking owlishly at his computers. Here he was, tired, stressed, about half-drugged from the effects of not having enough sleep, and she wanted to . . . CHAT? What in Primus's name was going on . . .

"Ms. Darby, is something the matter?"

"No!" she said quickly. "Of course not! Jack told me I should call, that's all."

Ratchet paused, eyeing said human very suspiciously from across the room. The boy didn't notice the glare. "Is that so? What else has Jack told you?"

Instead of beating around the bush, he was surprised to hear her say, "Nearly everything. At least . . . as much as he gathers, I think. Nightstalker was raped by Megatron. How is she, Doctor?"

"S-She is—" Ratchet paused a moment to clear his throat gruffly before saying, "She's alive. She seems to finally be on the mend after combating a stifling fever . . . But I am on the lookout for her to regress again."

"So, she hasn't woken up yet?"

"No, ma'am."

He heard her make a perturbed sound from over the line. "I see . . . Well, whenever she does, give me a call. I think it would be good for me to talk to her. I have a little experience in this area, and I think it would be much easier for to talk it out girl to girl."

For some reason, her offer made the world sink more on his shoulders. Ratchet vented sharply, passing his hand over his face. "Ms. Darby, your offer is generous, but Nightstalker hardly knows you. Do you think she would tell you something so personal?"

"Would she to you?"

Ratchet winced. He'd like to think she would, in fact hoped she showed that much trust to him, but . . . He vented again. "I don't know. Thank you for your offer, whatever happens."

"I see." There was a short silence. "Ratchet, how are you doing?"

Ratchet's brows rose in surprise. "Me? Well, I'm fine, Ms. Darby."

"You are?" she said, and there was an underlying tone of her voice that made the medic want to squirm. "How much sleep have you gotten?"

Ratchet blinked again. "I'm . . . sorry?"

"Mh. I see. You haven't been sleeping enough."

Ratchet vented in frustration then, sitting up. "Ms. Darby, I am most capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much."

"Then why aren't you doing that?"

Her words hit like a refreshing slap in the face. Ratchet pinched his brows, slumping over again. "Ms. Darby, Nightstalker needs my attention more than I do."

"Ratchet, if you don't take care of yourself, how can you expect to take care of your patients?"

Ratchet rested his forehead on his palm tiredly, too exhausted to contend in a battle of wits at this point. "Ms. Darby, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying you need to rest. Ratchet, I know all too well what you're doing. The way you get rid of your stress is to get everything done. If you have something hanging over your head—like Nightstalker's well being—that stresses you, so you only work harder to get done. You relieve stress by continuing to work." She finally paused in her words. She softened. "That's not good for you, Ratchet."

Ratchet closed his optics, stretching his neck to loosen the kinks. "Ms. Darby, you're words are kind, but I really have too much to do."

"Stressing yourself like this is only going to give yourself a higher frequency of emotional exhaustion. I bet I know exactly what you're doing, too. I bet your philosophy about all of this is to keep it to yourself and move on as nothing had happened. How many of the Autobots have you helped through the emotional whiplash of this rape?"

Ratchet vented sharply again. "Everyone, at some point."

"And how many have asked about your well being?"

He clenched his jaw. "All of them."

"And how many did you answer truthfully?"

His words stuck in his throat. Ms. Darby gave a knowing grunt over the line. "Ratchet, you need to relax."

"I can't. Not until Nightstalker is well again."

"You need to talk to someone."

Ratchet looked up at Jack across the room, who was chatting with Cliffjumper. "And that's why Jack had you call me. He was worried."

Quietly, he heard June repeat, "Yeah. He was worried . . ."

Ratchet sat back up, rubbing at his sore neck. "Ms. Darby, I thank you for calling. And I will rest. After all, I need a clear thinking processor to be at my best for Nightstalker."

He could hear her smile over the line. "Thank you, Ratchet. I've got to go now. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Ratchet clenched his servos as he looked over at Jack and Cliffjumper talking to each other near the still comatose Nightstalker. His throat tightened.

_ I will rest. But only when Nightstalker is healing._

Still, he needed an energon cube. He was running so low it was a wonder he had kept functional as long as he had.

As he started to head to the back, he heard a strangled, "R-Ratch—Ratchet, Ratchet! She's awake!"

Ratchet had bolted across the room faster than he had in millennia. True, Nightstalker was awake, and she was staring up heedlessly at the ceiling. After a moment, she started to close her eyes again, so Ratchet blurted, "Nightstalker!"

Her optics opened again. After jumping a moment, they fixated themselves on Ratchet. The medic was so relieved to see her awake that he nearly smiled, but it slipped away and he became professional again. "Nightstalker, can you hear me?"

She nodded.

He snatched up his flashlight. He pointed it near her face. "Follow the light for me, Nightstalker."

Though she did so, there was a certain listlessness to her movements. His throat tightened again. She was very much in shock, and she didn't quite seem to understand where she was. Ratchet snapped a finger, and this time when she looked, her head moved too. "Nightstalker, are you with me?"

Another faint nod.

Ratchet vented sharply and performed another scan of her, checking for trauma and monitoring how her levels changed now that she was awake and . . . possibly lucid. He wasn't sure yet. "Do you know where you are?"

She nodded again.

"Where are you?"

Her mouth opened, and then, she seized in a sharp intake. After a moment, her lips quivered, and she said, "Y—Th—" a couple more incomprehensible sounds and finally, "The silo."

Her words slurred a little, as if she was having troubles getting her articulators to work, but a relieved sigh expelled from Ratchet. Yes, lucid, though a little confused, as she should be . . .

"Can you turn your head left and right for me?"

She did so, cheeks twitching as she did, and he noted the way her chest seized up as she did so. "Does it hurt?" he asked.

"Yes."

He nodded again. "Your motor lines are inflamed," he told her. "That's why it hurts."

"Oh."

Her lack of response bothered him, or, no, her lack of EMOTIONAL response troubled him, but he didn't want to press the situation. "Are you comfortable?" He performed a deeper scan on her processor.

"No."

Ratchet carefully reached out to her, and when she oddly didn't flinch, he took the liberties to shift her little body again as he had dozens of times before to keep her from getting bed sores. "Better?"

"No. I hurt."

His spark panged. "I know. I'm trying to fix it." He paused and licked his lips. "You've been in a coma for nine days now." When Nightstalker blinked without inflection, Ratchet had to beat his raging emotions back. He did touch the side of her helm gently, reminding her that not all touches were like what Megatron had done to her. "W-We're glad to have you back in the land of the living," he choked out. His throat worked when she failed to respond, and he snapped again. She looked. "Nightstalker, do you . . . remember what happened?"

"Yeah."

Ratchet swallowed, taking her shoulder gently. "Are you all right?"

"No."

The emotionless response tore his spark out. Ratchet felt his intakes seize with compassion, and he very carefully kept a lid on his emotions. He gently touched her cheek, saying, "I know . . . I'm trying to fix that too."

Nightstalker just stared, seemingly unaware of the pain she was putting the medic through. In reality, she was busy trying to distract herself from the memory of what Megatron did to her. Ratchet buzzed about her for some time before he filled her line of sight again. "Nightstalker, Raf wants to sit with you."

"No."

His optics widened in surprise. "You don't want him with you?"

"No."

Ratchet turned with the unfortunate news, softly giving it to the boy. Raf cried a little and sniffled, but the medic told him to give her some time.

And so, Nightstalker lied on the medical berth, all alone. She hated being alone, but she wanted to be alone. She let her mind wander to the one mech she hadn't thought about in years.

_So. Dad. It's been a long time since I've tried to talk to you. Honestly, I'm just trying to blot things out of my mind right now. I'm tired of thinking about . . ._

_ Anyways, things have certainly changed. I'm an Autobot now, what are you?_

_ Oh, that's right, I wouldn't know . . . I'd still love it if you could come see me. You know, you wouldn't have to be responsible for me now. I'm old enough to take care of myself now. I know you don't want to be, that's why you left, right? I mean . . . Did I do something? Did Fli-Ni? Did Mom? If it was mom, then why did I have to suffer for what she did? I didn't do anything to you! I was just a sparkling!_

Her body tensed a little on the berth in her anger. Then, as quick as it came, the anger was gone.

_I just want to meet you, you know? I want to know who my daddy is. I don't know you, but I still want to, whether you abandoned us or not. Unless you're dead and I just waste my time talking to a corpse. Wouldn't that be a morbid twist on things?_

_ I'm just saying that you're the only one I've got left. I mean, Fli-Ni's dead. So is Mom. My half brother just closed me out of his spark. My step father hates my guts. And the mech I thought I loved just raped me. Yeah, you heard me right, I was raped! So why weren't you here to do something about it! You're my father! You're supposed to be there for me! You're supposed to be the one to RIP HIM APART for what he did to me or die trying!_

_ . . . Good riddance. I really hate you sometimes. You're never there when I need you. Never there when I want you. Never there at all. Sometimes I wonder if you even exist. I tried to replace you, you know? But you know what luck gives me? Optimus Prime. I thought he was perfect, and then I learn that he lusts after me. Sometimes I lust for him too after that kiss, so obviously that relationship is down the hole . . . I bet you're laughing at that too! You just love it that I don't have a father!_

_ By Primus, I WILL replace you. I'll find someone better. Someone who's not afraid to tell me right and wrong. I'll find someone that's a genius in his profession! I'll—I'll find someone! He'll be the best father in the world! He'll hold me when I'm scared or hurting instead of abandoning me! He'll support me and do everything to help me!_

She coiled up again in her anger, unable to do more than that. Again, she lost the strength to be angry, and she slumped back down.

_. . ._

_ I know. That's stupid. It always was a fanciful, childish thought. No one's going to stand up to something like that. There isn't a mech that fits the bill. Optimus was especially stupid. He's a commander and can't afford relationships like that, so it wouldn't have worked even IF he didn't want to frag me. Seems almost every mech around wants to frag me. Even Wheeljack looked at me like that. At least Bulkhead and Ratchet have decency._

_ If I met you and we didn't know each other, would you want me too? Ha, and if you gave me even the littlest of affections I'd fall right into your trap. Wouldn't that be another nice sin to add to my list of grievances over my lifetime! Interfacing with my own father!_

_ Primus, you're disgusting, and I hate you! I'm broken! I'm almost dead! I've been raped, and you aren't here to comfort me! You aren't here to get revenge for me, you're not here at all! You're not even real!_

Tears of denial slipped out of her optics. She tensed up, trying to move, or something, she wasn't sure, but the most she could do was lift up a little with her stomach and shoulders. Everything else was unresponsive. Her servos wouldn't curl into tight fists like she was trying, and that just depressed her more. She slumped back down again, defeated by her own body. She couldn't feel anything beneath her waist. Everything felt disconnected.

_. . ._

_ Look at me, crying over you again. And I hate it that I want you here. I still want to know who you are. I don't know you, but I want to so badly, and that's why this silence hurts the most. Yeah, I really hate the silence. It just reminds me of being alone, and I don't think I could bear life if I was always alone. It's scary. And it's so quiet that all you can hear is your own spark beat like you've been abandoned . . ._

_ Did you go off to war to protect Mom? I'm sure that's what it was, you didn't abandon us, you just wanted to make sure we could be safe. I bet you're a great warrior. I bet you're a high ranking officer, with dramatic bright colors on your armor, like reds and purples. I bet you're armored to the teeth with weapons, and you'll have a grand sword. You'd be my knight in shining armor. You've been looking for me all these years, and you've despaired just like me that you can't find me._

_ Yeah. Yeah, and secretly you grieve that I've died because you think I died in the slaughter of the femmes and sparklings on Kaon. You think you've lost me forever, but you keep looking just out of sheer desperation and a longing to have your little girl again, yeah . . ._

_ And when we finally find each other, it's going to be beautiful and perfect. We'll cry, and we'll hug each other, and we'll finally fix the bond that's been broken over these years. Do you think we could adopt Bumblebee? I'd love to have a brother that really loves me. No, I wouldn't be replacing Fli-Ni, but I really love Bumblebee, I'd love to have him as a brother, I'm just afraid it would look like I was trying to replace Fli-Ni, and I'm not, I promise . . ._

_ But a REAL father wouldn't leave me alone!_

Nightstalker seized the anger again just when she thought she was having friendly, civil conversation again. That anger deep within flared back up again, unable to be controlled by despair.

_Primus, a real father wouldn't leave me alone to pick up all the broken pieces of my life! Sometimes I think I should have just LET Megatron rape me to death! I should have just died and been put out of my misery! Maybe you're dead too, and I could have met you in the Pit and asked you all my questions, because we sure don't belong in the Well of All Sparks! Yeah, cause I'm just a fragging glitch that's fragged with a mech all her life and tortured people all her life! I'm good for nothing but causing people misery! Everyone I touch I ruin!_

_ So, does that make you happy? Are you happy with yourself, wherever you are? Are you with some mech or femme you love with all your spark? Did you just cover me up and blot me out like I never existed? Mom too? So what was the point of bonding with her in the first place? What was the point of having me if you didn't love us? Did you? Did you love my mom? Did you even care at all?_

_ DID YOU EVER LOVE ME!?_

_ I want to know! Just one slagging answer, please! These are the confessions of a broken spark! MY broken spark! And I can't bear it anymore, I'm coming undone, I don't have anything to hang on for! I just want to die! I want to die!_

_ . . . Why couldn't Fli-Ni have lived instead of me? I'm sure he would have done something good with his life. He could have been a majestic warrior, right? He was always strong, and outgoing, and he was good at sneaking and stealing, those would have been good traits to have in the war, he could have made it . . . Strong like his father._

_ But me? I'm weak. And I know I didn't get that from Mom, I feel that from my peds to my wings. So it must be you. You're weak. And you've passed your wretched weakness to me. And I bet that's why I've been shunned by both Autobots and Decepticons for so long. It's because you abandoned me, betrayed me, and I've gained that trait too! I abandon people and I'm a traitor! First the 'Cons, then the Bots, and now the 'Cons again!_

_ Were you a torturer too? Did you enjoy making people miserable like I do?_

_ This is so depressing, I can't even think about this anymore . . . I've waited for you for so long. Hasn't this been long enough? Can't you show up already? I can't find you, and I feel like giving up. I feel like you don't even exist. And you're cold shoulder only makes it worse. I mean, I'm broken, but I'm hoping one day I'll find you . . . And I mean, I'm crying all the time over you, but have you even cried a tear for me? I really like to think you have. I love to feed myself delusions that I have a loving father somewhere._

That painful hope swelled in her chassis again. Her needy spark reached out desperately for the love she didn't have.

_Or . . . Maybe I do. Oh Primus, what if you really are out there, and you really do love me, and I'm sitting here doubting you? What kind of daughter would I be to do that? I knew I was wretched, I really did, but I didn't think it was this bad . . . I'm sorry, Daddy, I won't ever doubt you again, I promise . . ._

_ . . ._

_ So, what do you look like? Are you tall? If you are, I wish I had gotten that trait. I'd like to be taller than this. It's really quite sad how small I am. The silver color came from Mom, right? Did the orange come from you? Mom was yellow . . . right? Yellow in her protoform? I don't know, I can't remember, she's just a fuzz to me, Fli-Ni could tell me . . ._

_ But hey, you're just a fuzz to me too. Not even that. You're nothing. You're just nothing to me. Do you know why? Because you ABANDONED me! I never knew you! And at this rate, I don't think I ever will, and I just want to be loved by you so much and you're not here—!_

Hot tears began to seep out of her optics again. She began to cry softly, fed up with it all. Jack looked over before calling for Ratchet again.

_Did you ever love me? Why'd you have to go? WHY! Why did you have to leave us, just tell me that, something, please . . . ! I just want some answers, I don't care how much they hurt at this point, I just want to know! Please! Please, I just want—I just want to be loved because . . . I love you! And I know that's stupid because you're not even there, you're just nothing, you're not even real, but I still love you! I love you because you're my father! Do you love me because I'm your daughter? I still love you, no matter what! I love you! I—I LOVE YOU!_

_ Primus scrap you for leaving me! You're cruel! Cold! Heartless! And I hate that I love you! Or the idea of you! I don't—I don't even know! I just—I want—I—I—_

_ I need a father! A part of me is dying without one, I didn't have anyone to teach me, to nourish me, to . . . I just—I need SOMEONE to look up to like a father! And now that Optimus and I have ruined things, I don't know what to do, I don't know who to turn to . . . I really am wretched and pathetic . . . Just like you . . . So I want someone strong as my daddy. I want him to be strong, and driven, and smart. And I want him to love me and care about me and hold me and kiss me . . . He's got to comfort me when I'm crying. Like, if I had a father, he'd hold me right now, he'd tell me I wasn't alone and would promise to protect me . . . I just—I want . . ._

"Nightstalker?" Ratchet's hands were taking her again. When Nightstalker just cried harder, his spark fell to pieces, and he shushed her gently, scooping her into his arms and holding her to his chassis. She pressed her face there, crying so hard she couldn't see through the tears.

_I just want a father! I want someone to be there for me! I want a father! I WANT A FATHER!_

She sobbed, breaking under the weight of her broken spark, and Ratchet held her softly, whispering comforting things like, "Easy, Nightstalker. It's all right. Megatron's not here. We won't let him hurt you again, I promise . . . Shh, it's going to be all right . . ." Though he told himself he shouldn't, he kissed the top of her helm and held her tighter, optics blurring. "It's all right, Nightstalker . . . You're not alone, I'm right here. Shh, I won't ever let Megatron hurt you again . . . I'll protect you, by Primus, Nightstalker, shh, it's all right, I'm here . . ."


	43. A Welcome Distraction

**Author's Note:**

**Yay! Extry long chapter! And Smokescreen-Y U SO ADORSABLES? 3 3 3**

* * *

><p>A whimper woke Ratchet. He sat up from the medical berth in half an instant, attuned to these bouts, and as he jumped to his peds, the whimper turned from a cry to a scream, escalating in half a second.<p>

He crossed the medical area to Nightstalker's side in one stride, knelt and began to shake her. "Nightstalker!" he shouted. She twisted in his servos, fans kicking on as fear heated her systems. She shrieked again, cringing away. "Nightstalker, wake up! Wake up! Nightstalker!"

A few good shakes later, Nightstalker jolted back to the land of the living with a thin gasp, and she grabbed hold of Ratchet's chassis, shaking. Ratchet held her, feeling her tiny tears trickling down his chest.

About half a minute later, according to habit, Bumblebee skidded into the room, half groggy with sleep and big worried optics. *Is she okay?* he asked quietly.

Ratchet nodded, letting her shed hiccupping tears on him. Her newly fixed wrists—something he had hurried himself raw to finish when her first voluntary words were, "I'd like drink my energon on my own. For the sake of what's left of my pride . . ." and suffered lack of sleep again that June berated him of—therefore, her newly fixed wrists allowed the use of her hands. He could feel her fingers digging into him.

"She'll be all right, give her a second."

And then, true to how these things went, Bumblebee sat down on the floor at Nightstalker's feet, and he held her little peds in his lap, stroking over her toes. It was a minimal touch, but Bumblebee was the only other one other than Ratchet that she let touch her.

It took her a little while, as always, to calm. Over the course of three days, the other Autobots had learned to turn over and go back to sleep since there was nothing they could do for her processor nightmares. Only Bumblebee, in his devotion, would continually get up even though Nightstalker did not seem to take much comfort in him being there. He just adamantly said that she did care, deep down, she just wasn't capable of showing it yet.

When Nightstalker calmed, soothed by the safe feeling of Ratchet's arms and the comfort of devotion at her peds, Bumblebee patted her leg before excusing himself back to his berth with the promise to Nightstalker that they were all here for her. It was a promise Nightstalker was used to hearing. They all promised it was going to get better. They all promised they were there for her, they wouldn't let Megatron hurt her again, she was safe, she was going to get better, Bumblebee's sweet little *I love you. Hope you feel better soon* and yet . . .

For some reason, it wasn't what she wanted to hear.

Ratchet's hand held the back of her helm. "Nightstalker, easy. It's all right. I'm right here. Go back to recharge."

She began to tremble again. "No."

A small sigh decompressed from this age-old fight. "I know you're afraid," he said softly, "but you need the rest. It's going to help you recover quicker. It's done wonders in helping your motor lines. The infection is going down. They're healing, Nightstalker. So I need you to rest."

"He'll be there for me again," she whispered back. Her little wings fluttered.

"And I'll be right here when you wake up," he pacified her quietly. "The nightmares aren't real."

"They were real."

"Not anymore. I won't let that happen to you. Not ever again."

"Then can you stop the nightmares?"

"No. But promise me you'll get some rest, Nightstalker. You need it."

"I don't want it."

"Promise me."

And, as this conversation always ended, she gave a dutiful, "All right . . ."

And Ratchet held her until she fell asleep again. Alone with her, Ratchet was more liberal with his affections. He lied her back down on the berth and took her servo in his and pressed his face to it. After taking a strangling breath, Ratchet vented out his frustration, anger, and despair and took the berth next to her again, sleeping near her in case she needed him again.

After all, he was getting this recharge not for his own sanity, but June's.

* * *

><p>"Nightstalker? It's June Darby."<p>

She had heard the human's soft steps coming to her. She had almost mistaken her for Raf again. And she still lied on this Primus-forsaken berth, unable to walk with her broken hips and Primus knew what else. Ratchet had tried to give her the full run down on what all was damaged, but Nightstalker had cut him off. She didn't think she wanted to know.

"Mind if I sit with you?"

When Nightstalker didn't respond, June took the liberties to go ahead and sit herself on the edge of the berth with her. Nightstalker felt a hand rest lightly against hers. Her fingers twitched at the feather-like touch, but she controlled the urge to wince away.

"Nightstalker," June said gently, "I'd like to talk to you about what happened between you and Megatron. If you would let me, that is."

Nightstalker gave a half shrug, uncaring at this point.

June paused, reassessing the femme who had clamped up tightly from everyone—even Ratchet, to an extent. She gratefully went to him to draw strength, but did she want to talk about it and let it out? No. Just severe bouts of crying and screaming in nightmares, and a lack of response to anyone, even Raf or Bumblebee.

June passed her thumb over Nightstalker's hand before taking a breath and saying, "Nightstalker, how are you really?"

Nightstalker stubbornly kept her silence for a moment before she rasped in a breath and whispered, "June. Don't try to fix me."

"You're broken," June said just as quietly. "As a nurse, I tend to try to fix these kind of things."

"I don't want your help."

"But I want to give it."

"Take it somewhere else. Leave me alone."

June nodded patiently, saying, "All right. I won't try to help you. Can we just talk instead?"

Irritation seemed to be bubbling under Nightstalker's complexion—June could see her brows cinching slightly, so she pressed onward, looking for that emotional response. "We don't even have to talk. I can just sit here if you like."

"I don't want you here."

"And I think it's about time you stopped isolating yourself from the others." June paused, letting that sink in as the kids giggles as they played a round of racing with Bumblebee and Cliffjumper washed over them. "Nightstalker," June said softly, "you can't bury it. It's only going to fester inside and hold you back from feeling free again and willing to move on with new relationships. You don't have to be strong for us, Nightstalker. We know it hurts, and we want to help. We don't want you to have to bear this all on your own." The only response June was able to gather from Nightstalker was briefly flickering optics. She stifled a sigh and instead said, "Now, what do you feel like?"

"I hate the world."

June nodded. "How so?"

Nightstalker scowled then. "Do you really need to ask? I was raped! I hate that I was raped, I hate Megatron; I hate that I was stupid enough to believe that he cared, stupid enough to believe in him that there was any sort of good. I hate that I hurt, I hate these berths, I hate laughter, I hate Ratchet worrying about me, I hate jumping at everyone's touch, I hate living like every shadow is going to attack me, and I hate life. I hate everything about it. I hate it. I hate it all."

June nodded with rapt attention. "Is there anything you love?"

"No." After a pause, she gave an unwilling and heavy sigh. "Yes. Raf and Bumblebee. All of you guys. Miko's music. Flying. I don't know. There's not much in comparison to what all I hate. I hate myself too."

June shifted. "Why?"

Nightstalker frowned, turning her face away. "For letting it happen." Tears sparked in her optics, and Nightstalker blinked fast, shaking her head. "June, I was so stupid! Optimus was right all along, but I didn't want to believe him. So I went back. And while I learned good things, things I needed to know . . . I think I'd trade it all back to not have this happened." Her lips quivered, and she bit down hard to hold it all back. "I'm stupid, June, that's all, just a stupid whore . . ."

June's hand tightened on her hand. "Nightstalker, don't tell yourself that."

"Why not?" she interrupted bitterly. Then, she muttered almost so quietly June didn't hear it, "It's true."

"No, it's not," June said patiently. "Nightstalker, you know better than to let Megatron's lies hurt you. And if you keep telling yourself something like that, you'll start to believe it." When Nightstalker failed to respond, June added, "Nightstalker, I know you aren't a stupid whore. You are . . . much more than that. You're a sister to Bumblebee; and a sister to Raf; you're a fantastic young lady who is trying to find her way through a war that has torn apart her family and home. And the fact that you've kept going by your own strength is admirable."

Nightstalker didn't respond, just listlessly turned her head away, and June crossed her legs, tightening her hand over the metal one. "Nightstalker, can you tell me about the rape?"

Her optics flickered. "I don't want to think back on it."

"I know," June said gently, "but . . . Let's assume that there is meaning in madness. Telling and retelling about it is the theory behind exposure therapy. If you flood your brain with details, it will tire of them. Think: people who haven't been raped retell silly stories to their friends about things that upset them, then tell them again to others, and then RETELL them to their friends—and the stories are infinitely less traumatic. Somehow, there's mastery in the retelling. We feel more control over the situation."

June paused, and when Nightstalker cycled in an unsteady breath she patted her hand and said, "Nightstalker, you don't have to push yourself. If it's too traumatic to tell in one sitting, we can do it bit by bit, I can come back as much as you like. I promise you can confide whatever you want to me—I won't pressure you, and I won't tell anyone anything."

There was a long silence. June waited for Nightstalker's response, turning over in her spark the massively unfortunate events that had befallen this already gun-shy femme. She was unstable as it was, flipping war sides, estranged with Optimus, and a little bi-polar to top it off. She worried.

Finally, Nightstalker took a breath and whispered with a quivering voice, "Is Cliffjumper okay?"

"He's doing all right," June said positively. "Arcee and Ratchet and Jack have been talking to him. He's opened up to Ratchet, and his disposition the next day was improved greatly, though he's still worried sick about you." June paused. "You and Cliffjumper are going to have to talk it out, one day. Not anytime soon, I know you're not ready, but . . . His heart is consumed with what he let happen."

Nightstalker nodded. After another moment, she whispered, "I thought I loved him." Her intakes seized sharply, and she shook her head. She closed her optics and tears trickled out. "I thought I loved him. And then he rapes me. Without a second thought. And I'm mad as hell that I was stupid enough to go back to him when Optimus had warned me not to. I'd love to rape him back, let him scream and squirm and torture him until he's a writhing mass under my claws! And most of all—is that the Autobots are just LETTING him get away with it!"

Frustrated tears leaked out of her optics. "Are you kidding me? I don't care that they're here for me, I know they're not going to let him hurt me again, I know they're worried, I know they want to comfort me, they love me, they—but I just fragging want SOMEONE to be MAD! Isn't ANYONE concerned with the injustice, the evil that he did to me? He raped me! I just want someone, Primus, anyone to mention how they'd rip him apart for me if they ever got their hands on him . . ."

Nightstalker stopped shortly, steadying her intakes when they started to turn jagged. With a deep breath, Nightstalker shook her head.

"And I'm dirty. I feel dirty all the time, Ratchet's gave me a decontamination bath every day, and it's not enough. I can't get him off of me, no matter what I do, he's still touching me, still spitting on me, still licking me—"

Nightstalker broke off again, and when June started to speak up, she blurted, "No! N-No—Just let me talk, don't say anything." It took Nightstalker several minutes to reorient herself before she admitted, "And . . . I just don't feel like going on with life. Sometimes I'd rather Ratchet just let me burn myself dry of energon and let me offline. I just feel . . . feel like I have nothing to live for anymore, and the only reason I don't pursue it is because I can't bear Bumblebee and Raf losing me, cause I know what it's like to lose a sibling . . . And I just feel like I'm going to be like this forever, hopeless and broken and no energy.

"And I'm scared of being alone." A bitter laugh left her, and she shook her head. "I don't want to be around anyone cause I don't want them to see me weak and broken and a pathetic little whore, but I don't want to be alone because I feel like Megatron's going to jump out at any moment and rape me again, but I know that's stupid and illogical since I'm in the silo, and it makes me feel even dumber and even more pathetic." She scoffed another laugh. "Jumping at my own shadow . . ."

She stopped again. "And Megatron." She shook her head. "Yeah. Him. I was giving him my spark and he rapes me. So, Cliffjumper is rescuing me, and Megatron finds us on our way out and attacks us. We escape in an escape pod, crash into a cave, and the cave collapses on us." Nightstalker paused. Her spark seized. Lubricant filled her optics.

"Ms. Darby, promise you won't tell anyone?"

The nurse nodded patiently. "I promise."

Fat tears began to slip down. She bit her lip hard, shivering both with the remembrance of the tender moment and fear for if she could ever let Cliffjumper kiss her again. "He kissed me," she whispered passionately. She shivered, hot tears streaming. "Oh Primus, June he kissed me, and I . . . I've never been kissed like that before . . . so—so perfect and sweet a-and . . . June, I—I liked it so much and now I'm afraid . . . I'm afraid to even let him touch me, I'm afraid I'll never let him—let him . . ."

June squeezed her hand in silent support before saying softly, "Nightstalker, give yourself time to heal. If Cliffjumper really does care for you, he'll wait until the sun burns out for you."

Nightstalker swallowed tightly. She trembled, the hot tears streaking out faster. "M-Ms. Darby—I'm afraid . . ." A hiccup passed through her systems, and she blurted, "Oh Primus, he's going to think I'm disgusting!"

June started on the inside, not expecting it, but she should have. She squeezed her hand reassuringly again, saying quickly, "Nightstalker, that's not true and you know it. Cliffjumper's just worried."

"You don't know that," Nightstalker snapped angrily. She clenched her jaw, fighting back the pointless tears. "You can't speak for him."

"Then let him speak for himself." Nightstalker's optics popped open, and she looked down at June who just gave her a supportive smile. "You'll have to talk it out with him, Nightstalker. Don't worry about rushing into it, give yourself some time, but . . . Talk to him. He needs it as much as you do."

Nightstalker lied back on the berth tiredly, and she took several steadying in cycles as June's thumb passed soothingly over the back of her hand. After a moment, she finally said, "Ms. Darby . . . thanks for talking to me."

June smiled easily, saying, "It was no trouble, Nightstalker. Feel free to call me if you want to talk with me again. Can I come back tomorrow?"

Her shoulder gave an uncaring shrug. "Sure."

June smiled. "Good. I'll be back to see you then."

June slipped off the medical berth, calling to Jack that she was heading back to the hospital. Nightstalker listened to her car start up and drive away. After a moment, she called, "Ratchet?"

The medical officer was there in a moment. "Yes?"

Nightstalker blinked up at him. "Um . . . Can I sit with Raf?"

Ratchet nodded immediately. "Of course. Do you want me to move you up where the children are? Or would you rather Raf come down here?"

Nightstalker paused. Her throat worked at being around them all at once. "Um, just Raf down here . . ."

Ratchet's hand brushed her audio receptor with a gentle, supportive touch before he turned to Raf. "Rafael?" The boy paused his game, looking up at Ratchet. "Nightstalker wants to sit with you."

He jumped to his feet, shoving his remote into Jack's hands. "I can see her now?" he said hopefully. His wide eyes could have ripped hearts out.

Ratchet nodded. "Be careful and be gentle," he warned the boy. "Ask before you touch. Even for hugs." Raf nodded bravely, neck bobbing a little bit. Ratchet reached down then, letting Raf into his hand and he brought him over to Nightstalker, letting him jump off onto the berth. Ratchet left them.

Raf shuffled his feet uncertainly, and Bumblebee watched from afar with hope that he might get that close next. When Raf bit his lip uncertainly, Nightstalker reached up a hand and curled her fingers around him. Raf held perfectly still, and after a moment, asked, "Can I hug you?"

Nightstalker swallowed. "Sure."

However, he did what she least expected. Instead of hugging her like she had figured a hug would be, he latched a hold of her thumb, hugging her thumb with all the might he could muster. "Are you going to be okay?"

Nightstalker paused. She didn't believe it, but lied for his benefit, "Sure. June and Ratchet just say it takes time."

He hugged her thumb tighter. "Yeah? Well, I'm glad you're finally getting better. I just . . . felt so sad all the time. But I bet I'll start to feel better now that you're feeling better." A little smile made his nose crinkle and his glasses to scootch up on his face. "I missed you."

Nightstalker's throat worked. "Y-Yeah. I missed you too . . ." Before he could see her tears, she guided him forward and let him put his arms around her neck in a precious little hug that made her spark ache even more. "Hey, have I ever told you I love you?"

"Um . . . No."

Nightstalker wet her lips and pushed out a slow breath. "Well, it's very, very true. I'm sorry I didn't say it before now that it was almost too late, but . . . I love you very much, Raf. You're the sunshine in my day."

Raf gave a little sob and pulled her closer. His little tears dripped on her neck wires. "I love you too, Nights."

She looked up, and her gaze met Bumblebee's. The scout practically quivered, and she gave a little gesture for him to come over, and he bounded over in one stride before forcefully holding back a hug.

*Can I hug you?*

Nightstalker's throat worked, but she nodded. "Yeah. Slowly. And don't crush Raf."

Little tears beaded in those big, big optics. *Thanks* He knelt and slowly, carefully hugged her. Nightstalker tensed a little at the feeling of him over her, feeling a little suffocated because she couldn't freely get up, but she hid it, wanting so bad to make it right for them. "I love you too, Bee. The moonlight in my darkness."

He pressed his cheek to her. *Love you too. A lot*

He let go before she had the chance to tell him to get up and that she needed space, and belatedly, she realized Ratchet had to have warned him about how a hug would constrict her. Nightstalker sighed as Raf let go too, both of them sitting next to her, content to get as close as they could without pressing her beyond her limits. "Thanks guys," she sighed.

Bumblebee tinkled a little laugh of relief. *No problem. I'm just glad to see you finally getting back to yourself*

"Me too," Raf said solemnly.

"Hey, Raf!" Raf looked up as Jack gestured up. "Found another picture of Bee on the net! Can you come scrub it?"

Raf laughed some and wiped his cheeks. "Sure!" With another quick hug, Raf bounded up the stairs much happier than he had come down. Bumblebee's optics whirred as he looked down on her.

*Missed you. It's really good to have you back*

Nightstalker reached up and squeezed his hand reassuringly, more for herself than him. She wasn't sure if she WAS truly back or not.

An exceedingly frustrated groan filled the silo. "Why can't I just DRIVE from now on?"

And to that, in true Ratchet-the-Hatchet style, he barked, "Because your legs will atrophy if you choose not to use them!"

A grumble, and Miko's voice chanting out, "One! Two! . . ."

Bumblebee and Nightstalker shared a knowing look. "She's good for him," Nightstalker finally said.

Bumblebee laughed. *That she is*

"Wait—what's that?"

Nightstalker waved Bumblebee off when he wanted to see what they were looking at, and Nightstalker just sighed to herself, resigned to her broken hips that forced her to stick to the berth like it was a prison. Needless to say, an incoming Cybertronian escape pod was the least of what she expected. They banked against using Wheeljack as reinforcements even with two bots down, and Bumblebee waved at Nightstalker as he went out with Optimus, Arcee, and Ratchet.

The ground bridge shut off, and Raf hurried to the computer to man the ground bridge. Miko and Bulkhead argued, mostly Bulkhead who seemed to be taking his legs so hard that he was angry at the world. The feeling of being angry was one Nightstalker could sympathize with.

Cliffjumper sat down on the ground, resting his bum leg some from where he had been working it hard all morning. He looked at Nightstalker. Nightstalker looked back. Then, at the same time, they looked away from each other and didn't speak until the ground bridge blasted back open.

The newcomer was tall for being almost as young as Nightstalker. However, before many pleasantries could be exchanged, Miko was all excited and running up the stairs and blurting out, "We haven't had another bot here since Wheeljack! What's your story, Smoke? Where'd you come from? How'd you get here? How many blasters you packing?"

After getting a look of Smokescreen and committing the new friendly to her memory banks, Nightstalker laid back on her berth tiredly. She listened halfheartedly as Smokescreen detailed his travels from Iacon to Earth to pacify Arcee's major distrust. He was completely excited to be here—she could hear it in his voice, pumped to be getting the chance to get in some action.

"Next thing I knew, I'm hitting solid ground. Hard."

"The Decepticon warship must have picked up the pod's beacon and guided it to Earth," Ratchet supplied helpfully.

Arcee was happy to know they had screwed with the 'Cons. Optimus bypassed her comment, asking, "Smokescreen, do you know of Alpha Trion's fate after the fall of Iacon?"

Smokescreen shook his head. "I wish I did. But that was the last I ever saw of him." A moment passed where Optimus looked away, and Smokescreen quickly filled the solemn gap with an overtly cheerful, "Well, that's it! My life's story. Not exactly the glory I'd envisioned for myself . . . until now! Being here with Optimus Prime—I KNEW I was destined for great things! I mean, now that you have help, how hard could it be to end this war?"

An angry growl cut through the room, and anything that even squeaked with the squeak of a mouse quieted in silence as Bulkhead limped slowly into the room, staggering steps clomping heavily. "Take a good look, newbie," Bulkhead growled, optics slitted with threatening ire. Smokescreen's optics popped in shock. "THIS is how hard!" Getting his equilibrium set beneath him, he threw an arm out to the medical area. "THAT is how hard!"

Smokescreen was stunned, and he followed to where Bulkhead gestured and Cliffjumper and his bum leg filled his sight and Nightstalker lying without inflection on the berth with broken hips met his sight. Cliffjumper gave a slight shrug as if to say, "You brought that on yourself with such a stupid comment," while Nightstalker simply ignored him, staring up at the ceiling.

"Smokescreen," Optimus began to say, and the young warrior jerked his attention to the leader, "I suggest that you take some time to become acclimated to your new surroundings. A tour of the base would be an excellent start."

"Sure thing!" Miko burst eagerly. However, not a moment after she said that, did Bulkhead groan a grumble to himself, leaning against the raised balcony. "I mean," Miko backtracked quickly, "Jack here offers a very informative tour."

* * *

><p>"So, what happened?"<p>

Jack glanced back at Smokescreen with a frown. "What?"

Smokescreen shrugged. "I mean, to the guys back there. What'd you say the big guy's name was? Bulkhead?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah."

"And Cliffjumper and Nightstalker. I've got it." Smokescreen shrugged his shoulders again. "I mean, come on—to get wounds like those? What happened to them?"

Jack resisted a scowl and instead his jaw just ticked a moment. "Look, all I can tell you is Bulkhead suffered a cheap shot in the back and Cliffjumper got hurt protecting Nightstalker."

After a pause in which Jack didn't elaborate, Smokescreen felt prompted to prod, "So? Nightstalker?"

Jack's brows pinched. "What about her?"

"Well, what happened to her! She didn't even respond to me when I introduced myself!"

"I'm not at liberty to say," Jack said strictly.

"Huh?" Smokescreen shook his head. "Seriously?"

Jack stopped and turned around to look him dead in the eye. "Very serious," Jack said.

Smokescreen frowned. "That bad, huh?"

Jack nodded.

Smokescreen shuffled his feet, cocking his head as he looked down on the small human whom he deduced to have some brass bearings. "You seriously can't tell me?"

Jack shook his head. "I respect Nightstalker's privacy. You should too."

Smokescreen paused a moment as Jack turned on his heel and began to walk down the hall. After a moment, Smokescreen followed. "So I take it only a couple people know what happened to her?"

Jack's tense hands slacked. "No. We all know."

Smokescreen shifted. "Oh. I see." A short of silence. "If I ask, will she tell me?"

Jack stopped again, turning around to Smokescreen. "Why do you need to know?"

Smokescreen halted again, and he put up his hands in submission in the deserted hallway. "Look, I didn't mean it like that," Smokescreen apologized. "Jeez, I keep getting off on the wrong foot with you all . . . Look, I'm just saying, she didn't look right. And I'm not just talking about just her hips, she was cringing away from me even though she knew I was a friendly. I mean—she looked at me like I was going to attack her!"

Smokescreen judged Jack's face, but the young human's will to protect Nightstalker was bigger and he didn't let the emotion flicker from his face. Smokescreen sighed. "Look, I just noticed that she doesn't look right. Her optics weren't right. I don't know. Guess I got a little worried."

Jack finally let out a breath and shook his head. "I guess . . . if you really want to know . . . You'll just have to ask Nightstalker. And if she doesn't tell you, DON'T press her. All right?"

Smokescreen nodded. "All right."

Still, as Smokescreen followed the small human down the halls of the quaint silo, he could only silently be impressed by the fortitude the small organic had and he could only respect his devotion to the tiny femme.

* * *

><p>"If you wanted to replace me you should have called Wheeljack! . . . I could have lived with THAT."<p>

Bulkhead's grumbling could be heard across the main room of the silo. Nightstalker listened, not knowing whether she wanted to cuss his sorry-aft out for whining or hug him and sympathize with him.

"No one is replacing you, Bulkhead," Arcee placated him. "For one thing, Smokescreen's too green!"

Miko scoffed. "Well Bulk's as green as they get!"

It took them a moment. "What Arcee means is," Ratchet said, "Smokescreen still has a great deal to learn."

"And once you've got him trained, then what?" Bulkhead snapped angrily. "He's in, I'm a doorstop!"

"Bulkhead," Optimus said seriously, "your place with us is not in jeopardy. There is no dispute that we have long needed additional firepower. It is essential that our team learns to work WITH our new recruit—not against him."

"Better hope the hotshot's blasters are as big as his mouth!" Bulkhead shot back. "How hard could it be . . ."

It was interesting on how much inflection Nightstalker could hear in people's voices when she wasn't seeing their body movement. Still, red energon was discovered; Smokescreen forbidden to come on a mission until he had more training and an alt mode (Jack took him out); Optimus, Bumblebee, and Arcee went out to seize the red energon; Cliffjumper moved about restless, already getting antsy about not being in with the thick of it and working twice as hard as Bulkhead to get his leg working correctly. Cliffjumper hobbled more than limped, leg in a splint but still—he moved much more efficiently than Bulkhead did.

And so, Smokescreen, all gung-ho, wanted to be backup—so did Bulkhead. Cliffjumper knew better than to ask the strict medic and instead bided his time, working hard on his physical therapy. Then, Smokescreen was given clearance with the Phase Shifter to knock Starscream out of his armor—which worked flawlessly and Optimus dragged the gigantic armor inside.

"Told you I just needed to borrow it for a while," Smokescreen said airily. He gave Optimus a look and lifted the Phase Shifter into sight with a roll of his optics. "Doc here thought I was stealing your relics."

Ratchet snatched it from his hand. "ONLY until you explained your plan, which I then sanctioned. It's called protocol!"

"Ratchet is correct," Optimus told him. "Standard procedure must be observed by EVERY member of this team." When Smokescreen dropped his head shamefully, hurt that he had clearly disappointed Optimus, the Prime changed his tone, noting the young warrior's disposition. "However, I believe we must also commend Smokescreen." Smokescreen lifted his head then, optics practically shining with pride. "You have proven to be a quick study," Optimus said, placing a hand on his shoulder, "by choosing to place strategy above bravado."

Arcee scoffed, but not cruelly. "There's going to be NO living with him now . . ."

"While this may lack the pageantry of a proper Elite Guard ceremony," Optimus continued, "I wish to welcome you into Team Prime!"

Nightstalker lifted her head to look at him, and his optics touched hers before he quickly looked away, but his face glowed now that he had been officially accepted by them all. A grunt broke the silence.

Bulkhead stood in the hallway, bracing himself on the wall for balance as he looked out at them all congratulating Smokescreen. "The newbie did all right . . ." he finally muttered, looking over at the Apex Armor.

Miko was already down the steps with a bright grin. "Don't worry, Bulk!" she said cheerfully. "He's got nothing on you!"

Bulkhead didn't respond. Instead, he just turned haltingly, hands slapping against the walls of the halls as he began to limp away.

Miko, not very put off—or, at least she didn't let on-said, "Seriously! Once we get that leg of yours back into shape, ol' Smokey's going to learn real quick who the top wrecking ball is around here!"

Nightstalker sat up a little, resting on her elbows as she watched Miko watching Bulkhead disappear down the hall without a single word to his human partner. The silo was completely silent as Bulkhead limped heavily along, slowly, the clack of his armor clattering and every piston popping with the stress of carrying his weight. After a moment in which Bulkhead completely left sight, Nightstalker said, "Ratchet, carry me."

Smokescreen whirled, and before he had thought about what he was saying, blurted, "She talks!"

Nightstalker scowled as she sat up fully. "Of course I talk," she muttered snappishly. "Ratchet, pick me up. Carry me."

The medic crossed the room with a foul expression to Smokescreen before he collected Nightstalker in his arms and picked up her feather light body. Nightstalker wrapped an arm around his neck, and Ratchet strode down the hall with her, already knowing she wanted to talk to Bulkhead. He didn't question it, but rather just hoped that she could improve the ailing mech's disposition. Still, he wasn't sure how she would do that when she violently refused any physical therapy for strengthening her arms.

It took them a round around the silo to find Bulkhead in one of the training rooms sitting down, fists clenched tight as he glared at his punching bag that had last been used by Ratchet himself. His angry optics flicked up to Ratchet and Nightstalker, but they softened slightly simply because Nightstalker was in the room.

"Sit me down next to him."

Ratchet did so, and when she flapped a hand at him, he eyed them both warily before he took his red and white hide out of the training room. After a moment in which Bulkhead resolutely glared at the punching bag, Nightstalker finally said, "Bulk, look at me."

Bulkhead turned his head, looking at her, and she looked back. When nothing was forthcoming, she scowled and snapped, "LOOK at me!"

Bulkhead reared back and away from her, surprised at her vehemence. "N-Nights?"

She hit him. Granted, she hit him on his arm and about as soft as a feather, but she still got her point across. It even made Bulkhead scoot away some. "Are you really stupid, Bulkhead?" she said angrily. "I really don't think you are." When he still just looked at her uncertainly, Nightstalker scowled and gave a gesture to her legs. "So? Do you see yet?" She grabbed her right leg, picked it up, and flopped it to the side. Bulkhead winced at the abnormal angle she put it at. "Looks good, huh?"

Bulkhead averted his optics, averted his whole head away and strained out, "Nightstalker . . . don't."

"And why not?" she snapped. "Bulkhead, my hips are BROKEN! I CAN'T walk! And you, who has function in his legs—be it may limited function—but they are FUNCTIONING! They work! So why are you tossing that aside and bitching about it?" When he still didn't look at her, she hit his arm and growled, "LOOK at me."

Unwillingly, Bulkhead looked over, optics dancing with the urge to look away from the sight of her hips. "You have a chance to get better," she said with strained patience. "This," and she gestured to herself, "is plenty worse than your problem." Nightstalker shook her head and leaned back. "Tell me, Bulkhead, would you rather get shot in the back or would you rather get raped?"

Bulkhead winced away. "Nights—"

She interrupted him with a scowl and growled, "PLEASE don't be stupid enough to answer that. Just get yourself together already! Miko's done so much for you, she's helped you at every chance she's had and you're throwing everything away, everything Ratchet's done to help fix you. Clearly, you just don't give two shits about the scrap they've gone through to help you. That it?"

Bulkhead cringed again, but finally said back, "No! No, that's not it!"

"Then what is it?" Nightstalker snapped at him. "You're a Wrecker! They're the guys that made Decepticons run before you even stepped foot on the field of battle. Trust me—I know! And you're going to let this get you down? Thought you were better than that, Bulk. Thought you had some serious brass bearings. And you're giving up on yourself."

"What," he finally shot back angrily, "and you're not?"

Her wings twitched. She touched her comm. link, saying, "Ratchet, come get me."

"See, now you want to run from it!" Bulkhead growled back. "Did it ever once occur to you that I don't feel like it for the same reason you don't feel like it? That maybe I'm just not good enough for the team? That I've blundered one too many times?"

"I don't feel like that at all!" Nightstalker shouted back. "I feel like a whore, Bulkhead! A pathetic, traitorous whore! And I know for certain you don't feel like that!"

Bulkhead winced into himself at her venomous words, and fed up with it already, Nightstalker began to crawl away as well as she could, pulling herself along with her limited arm strength.

Bulkhead turned his hurt optics to her, watching her with pity as she tried to leave without much luck. "So what, you're just going to give up?" he shouted after her. His hands fisted. "That's some way to go out after how Ratchet slaved over you to get you fixed! After how much Bumblebee and Raf cried over you! You're just giving up? I don't see you even TRYING Nightstalker!" She winced, gritting her teeth with the sheer effort it took to crawl and how much her arms failed her, so weak it was pathetic. Ratchet was there in an instant, picking her up and carrying her away, cradling her legs with care. "You're worse than I am!" Bulkhead yelled. "So who are you to tell me to—to—It's your own fault you're not getting better! You won't let yourself!"

His voice faded. Nightstalker trembled in Ratchet's arms. She clung a little tighter wings fanning in agitation as Bulkhead's words creeped over her circuits. A moment later, she heard Ratchet rumble, "He's right, you know."

"Shut up," she rasped. She buried her face into his shoulder. "He's a glitch too."

Ratchet muttered so quietly she almost didn't hear it, "Aren't we all . . ."

* * *

><p>Just when she thought it was going to get worse, that the hands would grip tighter, the claws would dig sharper, the spike would hit deeper, she was snapped out of it by a worried voice yelling in her audio receptor, warping from Cliffjumper's to Ratchet's.<p>

Another hard shake that jerked her head as she fully came back to consciousness. "Nightstalker, wake up," Ratchet rasped. She blinked with terrified disorientation at him before she collapsed gratefully into his chassis, so thankful that he had broken her away from the nightmare of reality that she sobbed scared tears all over him. Yet again.

However, instead of Bumblebee making it to the main room of the silo for once, a wired young warrior skidded into the room with a shout. "Primus-slag it all!" Smokescreen bellowed. His ion cannons hummed as he took an offensive sweep of the silo, and not seeing any Decepticons, burst, "W-Where are the 'Cons?"

"Are you daft?" Ratchet snapped. He bunched Nightstalker closer, shielding her from Smokescreen as she cried hard on his chest. "There are no Decepticons here! Go back to recharge!"

With optics popping in frustration, Smokescreen turned his servos back into fingers and gave an angry gesture. "What? You expected me to ignore her screaming!"

Ratchet pinched his brows, venting in irritation. "Look. It's fine. Go back to recharge."

"It's FINE?" Smokescreen exclaimed. "Like Pit it is! Look at her! What happened?"

Ratchet's jaw snapped tight. "I. Am not. At liberties. To say."

Smokescreen scowled, hurt he was being left out. "Yeah, that's what you all say! Nightstalker! What happened to you?"

Ratchet opened his mouth for a cutting remark at Smokescreen's lack of tact, but Nightstalker pushed up for a moment, turning to him with blazing optics. "I was RAPED!" she screamed at him. Then, overcome with drenching shame, turned and hid back in Ratchet's chassis, trembling, sobbing.

Smokescreen recoiled. The truth hit like a slap in the face, and he stopped, feeling sorry that he had pried so hard. Ratchet scowled in anger, and finally, over Nightstalker's crying, he was able to say hoarsely, "Who did it?"

"Megatron," Ratchet said shortly. The medic turned his attention to Nightstalker, cupping the back of her helm and soothing her with whimsical words.

Smokescreen felt his internals heat up. His optics flared, and as he thought about Megatron's size—he had never seen him in person, but his size and skill and horrors were well known—and he felt the a sudden surge of protection for this tiny femme he barely knew. It wasn't right. By Primus, it wasn't right!

"Nightstalker," and the force of passion by which he said her name made her crying stop on an uncertain hiccup as she looked at him. He quivered he was so worked up at the thought of what happened, and he clenched his jaw before saying, "All right, listen to me. We're not going to let anything happen to you, all right? And Megatron—Pit, if Megatron ever shows his face again he's gonna wish we had never got our hands on him!"

Nightstalker straightened up some at him, teary optics blinking rapidly to see his impassioned optics. Ratchet scowled.

"Smokescreen, you can't go out for revenge! Optimus—"

"Frag Optimus if he thinks I'm going to let Megatron get away with this!" Smokescreen snapped. He pointed at Nightstalker, saying intensely, "I'm not going to just let him walk away. I don't care what it takes, I don't care who's orders I go against, all I know is that I'm going to gut that 'Con, and I'm going to give you his head. All right?" When Nightstalker faintly nodded, Smokescreen gave a curt nod back. He started to move back down the hall, past Bumblebee, but he suddenly turned back and pointed again. "And don't you let him win," he said seriously, optics practically blazing with passion. Nightstalker blinked back, astounded at this newcomer she barely knew. "Don't you let him walk all over you! You get better—and you come back stronger. Got it?" When Nightstalker failed to say anything back, he stepped forward and stressed, "GOT IT?"

Nightstalker finally bobbed a nervous head, unsticking her glossia to say, "G-Got it."

Smokescreen nodded again, and after another worried look back at her, stomped his angry peds down the hall as he went to his given berth room to brood about this kind of sick deed.

Nightstalker leaned back into Ratchet, letting him hold her, and Bumblebee sat at her peds, taking her feet into his lap and stroking her toes. However compared to the despair she had felt a couple of days ago in this very same position with these two mechs, Nightstalker felt . . .

Different.


	44. This Is It

**Author's Note:**

**Song used is "This Is It" by Kirk Franklin. Yeah. I'm channeling my black half today (I'm a mix of black and white)**

* * *

><p>"Well, um . . . Hello, Nightstalker."<p>

"Um . . . Hi."

There was a pause. "Well, I uh—I know we haven't really talked person to person, you know, other than an order here and there, but . . . I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right."

"Sure. I'm okay."

"Well, uh . . . good."

They sat there a moment longer. The moment stretched to awkward, and finally Fowler said, "Oh! Um . . . My wife wanted you to listen to a song. She said it's called _This Is It _by Kirk Franklin. Yeah, that's his name."

Nightstalker nodded again. "Sure."

The moment stretched. Fowler shifted, and Nightstalker resisted the urge to tap a finger. Finally, Fowler stood up, saying, "Right. Well, I ought to get going."

Nightstalker nodded. She shuffled her peds, hips fixed by Ratchet a day ago. It felt good to feel her feet. "All right. Bye."

"Bye."

Fowler walked away, expelling a worried breath and yet relieved to be out of Nightstalker's presence. He didn't know how to act around her with what had happened, a thought that still sent him hot under the collar. Still, as he walked up the gangway, he stopped in front of the railing, calling, "Prime."

Optimus's heavy footfalls brought him up to him. "Agent Fowler."

The man paused. After a moment, he straightened his loosened tie, and though he didn't look directly at the Prime, afraid that he would see the painful worry and hatred bottled up deep inside, he muttered, "Next time you get the chance . . . don't let that bastard walk away. At least make him limp."

Fowler exited. The door to the elevator whizzed shut before Optimus made his answer.

"Gladly."

The raspy beeping of the computers made Ratchet look, and he scowled. At that, Optimus approached him. "Ratchet, what is it?"

"A high frequency with an embedded message from Wheeljack," Ratchet sneered. Optimus simply arched a brow. Grumbling, Ratchet opened it up, and he frowned, reading it. "This message is only for the femme called Nightstalker. Unless you're her, I wouldn't suggest reading this." Ratchet and Optimus paused. Ratchet looked over to the medical area. "Nightstalker!" He began walking over. "You've got a message from Wheeljack," he told her. He held out a hand. "Come on. Let's go."

She blinked up at him. "I can't walk."

Ratchet's jaw ticked. He had tried to get her to work some yesterday, and she plaintively refused. "Nightstalker, I've fixed your hips," he said. "I can't put the strength back in them for you, you'll have to do that yourself. And the only way it's going to happen is if you get up and WALK."

She stared up at him, and Ratchet scowled. He stubbornly kept one hand out. "Nightstalker, I'm not bringing you over there unless you walk. I can help you the whole way, but I need you to use your legs! At this rate they will atrophy and you'll never have the use of them again."

Nightstalker blinked, and she dropped her head. "Guess the message can wait."

Ratchet scowled angrily, frustrated that she wouldn't lift a hand to help herself. He stomped off, absolutely quivering with raging ire, and Optimus just looked at him. Ratchet held up his hand as if he had tried to speak, muttering, "DON'T try me at this point, Optimus."

Optimus nodded his head. "I think, at this time, Nightstalker needs more support than pressure," he finally stated. Ratchet watched him walk towards the medical area, and it was on the tip of his tongue to call the Prime back and tell him not to interfere with his patient, but he let it go with a frustrated growl.

WHY wouldn't she help herself? Had Megatron said something otherwise to her? June resolutely kept everything she and Nightstalker talked about confidential, much to Ratchet's carangid, and that hurt too. She trusted June enough to tell her about these things and not him? After everything he had done for her . . .

It hurt, to be alienated. Optimus cradled Nightstalker easily in one arm and brought her up to the computer, opening the message for her, but averted his face so she could read it herself. Still, she spoke aloud, unconcerned at the contents of the message.

"Heard what happened. Hope you're getting better. Just letting you know that Megatron's missing a couple of his crucial energon mines, all destroyed in your name. Buck up and toughen up. Grab life by—" She paused. Then, Ratchet watched with disbelief as her lips twitched; she even sputtered a little. "Grab life by the balls and make it your bitch. Megatron too."

After a moment more, Nightstalker gave a laugh. Her first since the incident. A couple giggles more, and she shook her head. "I needed that."

Jealously raged in Ratchet's chassis. Optimus just gave him another look as he took Nightstalker back, sitting her back on the medical berth. Ratchet seethed—

Even WHEELJACK was helping her more than he was! What was he doing wrong? Why couldn't he make her feel better?

The days dragged. Over the next couple days, Ratchet tried his hardest to work with Nightstalker, but nothing seemed to work. Instead, she seemed . . . preoccupied, if that were possible. She was always pinch-faced, brows crinkled, and she tended to sit in a ball a lot. Her wings would flutter, and her deep dives into her own mind of though stretched for hours. Then, she would welcome a distraction of Raf and Bumblebee, have her session with June, calm down from the session with June, and then laps back into that intense brooding.

Ratchet didn't know what she was thinking about, and he worried. It wasn't that he suspected Nightstalker of foul play or a severe case of depression that she hid admirably well (he would expect the latter of the two compared to her wanting to hurt herself) he just . . . WORRIED. It unnerved him to see her like this. And, her bipolar tendencies tended to swing from one extreme to the other, with more than often her extreme paranoia and self-loathing and hatred directed towards Ratchet or June and not the others. Her pretense of getting better was stretching thin—if she didn't truly start recovering soon, the other bots and kids would notice and there wouldn't be a damn thing she could do to hide it.

It frustrated him. She refused to get well, she refused to allow him to help her with the physical therapy, and the closest thing to her mental therapy was whatever June was doing with her. Of that, Ratchet could only be begrudgingly thankful and burn with envy that he couldn't do anything to alleviate her sufferings.

Still, something that thrummed beneath the surface, Ratchet worried over the fact that it had been over two weeks, borderline three since the rape incident and Cliffjumper and Nightstalker hadn't spoken a word to each other, in all, even going so far as to AVOID each other.

It boded ill; it worried the already extremely worried medic until it was border lining complete distress that he could only hide and bear.

At least Cliffjumper had regained full function of his arm and nearly full function of his leg.

. . .

NOW he chose not to be a pain!

* * *

><p>"Bulkhead," Ratchet said with strained patience, "you shouldn't allow yourself to decline."<p>

"Yeah, Bulk!" Miko chimed in cheerfully. "You gotta pull yourself out of this funk!"

"What's the use?" he muttered dejectedly.

Ratchet stifled a sigh. Combating three people sank deep into depression wasn't helping his strain at all. Nightstalker was completely unresponsive again, looking down twiddling her thumbs with a distant expression pinched in thought.

"You need to regain your strength," Ratchet pressed. "The time will come when—"

"When what?" Bulkhead interrupted snappishly. He looked up from where he sat with a sour expression. "When all of you will need an assist? Isn't that what the new guy's for?"

"Hey, Bulkhead!" said "new guy" said rather cheerfully—as he always did. He came up with a grin, toting the Apex Armor in his hands. "I've been thinking! With your injury and all, you might wanna take advantage of the armor I snagged from Starscream." He grinned. "Instant muscle suit!"

Ratchet could have dropped his face into his palms. No one saw that he was just trying to be helpful—in a rather misguided sweet way. He just couldn't believe that he was stupid enough to go about it as flippantly as he had, and he saw Bulkhead's optics flare bright as if Smokescreen had challenged him.

_"You think I need a CRUTCH?"_

In a rare show of aggression, Bulkhead leapt to his peds and slugged the armor out of Smokescreen's hands. It soared away and crashed into Ratchet's computer with devastating force and—

The bipping slowed to a halt and the power running it siphoned away with a groan.

"BULKHEAD! I NEEDED THAT!"

Bulkhead just growled, and with a sudden spring—if you could call fixing his limp to a bearable walk, merely a stiff walk a spring—he hit Smokescreen in the chest as he brushed by, snarling, "Out of my way, rookie!"

Smokescreen's optics popped with gleeful delight at Bulkhead's angry stomp. "He can walk!"

Subsequently, Bulkhead ignored the outburst pointedly, his Wrecking pride hurt that Smokescreen had suggested something to HELP him. Ha! He was a Wrecker! He didn't need the help of a flimsy crutch! With a newfound determination to prove that swaggering rookie wrong, Bulkhead snatched up the lobbing ball and began to do more reps, hell-bent on fixing his legs once and for all.

"Looks like he's fit for duty to me!" Smokescreen said jauntily with a smile.

Ratchet, unamused at the young warrior, muttered almost intelligibly, "You don't even know what you're talking about . . ." Back to action in THAT condition? Cliffjumper had a better chance to go out than Bulkhead did! At least Cliffjumper was beginning to walk normal and wasn't so stiff he could barely manage his strides!

Nightstalker listened to the exchange silently. Ha. If only determination were that easy for her to find . . .

As the bots went out to stop a resurrected Breakdown/Silas, Nightstalker could only wonder where to get the initiative to help herself. She succumbed to the fact that they were all right; she needed to do something. But she just felt . . . tired. Exhausted, weak, like she could fall down a rabbit hole and never come back up. Her will was broken, and she didn't know how to fix it.

She clung to Smokescreen, Fowler, and Wheeljack's words—they were the first ones NOT to coddle her. For some reason, that was what she felt she needed most. Sure, Ratchet didn't play around with her, but it was too much, "It's for your own good," and scrap like that. She didn't care about her own good at this point.

She just wanted to hurt somebody—a certain someone—and hurt him bad. She wanted to take life by the balls and make it her bitch.

She just had to figure out how to get out from beneath life's heel first.

She missed Raf. And had an inner spark attack when she heard about Silas/Breakdown nearly killing all of the humans—thanks the heavens stopped by Bulkhead and an assist from Smokescreen—which subsequently led to a breakdown later that night on Ratchet as she completely fell into hysterics. The best thing that came out of the day was seeing Bulkhead finally back into the swing of things and his jealous strife with Smokescreen pacified.

Overnight. Another nightmare. More Ratchet crutch, more Bumblebee crutch, and another morning—in which Smokescreen decided to blow his cover. Nightstalker twiddled her thumbs more, no initiative to help herself when she felt so dirty and hoping Jack could whip a certain ruckus Smokescreen into shape. The kid might have his spark in the right place, but scrap was he a troublemaker!

And, when Smokescreen and Jack came back late that afternoon howling with laughter, Nightstalker could only groan and think of the million things they could have done to laugh that hard with boyish delight.

"I am SO posting this tonight!"

More laughter. In fact, so much laughter that everyone present in the silo—Ratchet, Arcee, Bumblebee, and Cliffjumper—all looked to see what indeed was so funny.

"Arcee—Arcee! Check out Vince's car!"

Jack held a phone up to her. "The Bullet?" she said dubiously and she squatted to see. She blinked.

Jack just grinned, having had too much fun to care. "Hey Vince?" he mock jabbed at the other human. "Did you want FRIES with that?" It sent both him and Smokescreen into riotous laughter that rebounded off the halls of the silo.

"So let me get this straight," Arcee finally said. "You taught Smokescreen everything he NEVER needed to know about fast food?"

Jack spread his hands. "He passed driver's ed! Work hard; play hard."

"Yeah," Smokescreen chimed in. "No humans were harmed in the makings of these photos—honest!"

Nightstalker huffed out a tired sigh and flopped flat on her back on the medical berth. She sorely hoped Smokescreen wasn't going to ruin Jack's sense of responsibility. It would be a poor thing to see Jack acting a fool when he had such promise. Hopefully the impressments would work the other way around—

"Oh! Nights! I almost forgot!"

Nightstalker blinked, moving to sit up again when Smokescreen came up with something in his hands. A tiny something. In his fingers. He held out the pot with its pretty flowers, white lilies, red roses, orange mums, and violets and an assortment of other flowers. By Cybertronian sizes, it was tiny, but by human sizes, it was big. Cliffjumper suddenly looked up, all attention focused on Smokescreen and the bouquet.

"It's a berth-warming gift!" Smokescreen said cheerfully, handing it to her. "Humans give flowers when one they care about's been stuck in the hospital, so I thought I'd extend the same favor!" Nightstalker took the flowers in both hands, looking up bewilderedly at Smokescreen. "It was Jack's money, but hey, I don't have the local currency." Then, he leaned forward suddenly, whispering with the grandest secret, "Hey, just between you and me? The first step's always the hardest." With that, he gave a rakish smile and a wink before chucking her chin affectionately and moving off.

Cliffjumper's optics trailed him the whole way, assessing his competition.

Nightstalker stared down at the smiling bouquet full of bright splashes of colorful flowers that she knew Jack had to have spent a good fortune on. She knew prices of flower arrangements weren't cheap. It melted her hurting spark to a mush, and one of her fingers reached up to stroke at one of the delicate petals.

"Thank you," she murmured. No one heard her, the boys already having moved on to another video game tournament, but that was all right with her. She was sure they understood. They wouldn't have done it otherwise.

The day passed in a blur to Nightstalker. She adored over her flowers quietly to herself, refused Ratchet again as she didn't want to take the chance of starting her physical therapy and failing horribly as she expected to and ruining her good mood. Yeah, that was it. It was a good mood. The happy flowers perked her up, and she liked it. Primus, she couldn't believe the wonderful feeling of being so mellow.

Indeed, she passed her day preoccupied with the flowers, counting the petals, memorizing the look of them, contemplating how much Jack paid for them and how much each part of the plants would be paid for with each dollar. She briefly considered who had come up with the idea to get her something to cheer her up, but then decided she didn't care. It didn't really matter, after all. Besides, she highly suspected it had been a joint decision.

And so it came to be that she was lying that night restlessly awake while Ratchet dozed in a recharge next to her. She gazed at the flowers in the dim of night, wondering—what had she ever done with her life? As she raked it up in her mind, it followed as such:

She had lived as happily as she could with her mother and Fli-Ni even with the strife of their fathers until both deserted for the war and her mother died. Then, she spent her sparkling years holding on to her youngling brother's servo as urchins in the street, kicked by people who bowed their heads and didn't give privy to the sufferings at their feet. Then, Kaon was domineered by the Decepticons, and her brother died, and she was left all alone—taken in by the Decepticons. Given torture skills by a mentor who wasn't particularly merciful in the ways she had done it—Nightstalker didn't think she'd ever forget when Airachnid took her as a youngling and victimized her both to torture tactics and her poison. Nightstalker was sure she still had the burn marks seared into her back.

And so, life persisted by Nightstalker torturing mechs and femmes, a grand total of 263 over her couple millennia and countless interfaces with Megatron, each more kinky than the last (though thankfully she never gave into having a threesome with him and Soundwave, a particular daydream that Megatron had seemed fond of).

And it was then Nightstalker realized how . . . utterly pointless her life had been. She had done the most meaningful things as an Autobot, albeit negative and positive things, but she hadn't just gone through the motions.

And then, Megatron had successfully snatched away what hopes she might have had for the future. Raped. His touch still crawled over her person and still impaled her port every time she even had the briefest mention of the subject. Her spark still quivered. She still jumped at the wrong kind of touch. It bothered her to be so dependent.

_**"Do you like it, you filthy whore! Scream! I'm sure Cliffjumper would love the show!"**_

Nightstalker winced into herself as his voice suddenly raked across her mind, the darkness pressing in tight around her. Her breathing shallowed. She didn't like it. He could keep his filthy hands off her! _Don't TOUCH me!_

_**"I hope you enjoy this as much as I do."**_

Nightstalker jerked, feeling that spike jab into her. Instinctively, she bucked away, panic rolling across her processor. Breathing sharply to control the fear, Nightstalker felt tears bead in her optics. Her jaw clenched.

_You aren't here. You aren't even touching me! Stop messing with my processor! Stop it! Stop it!_

His dark laughter echoed in her mind, non-stop, mocking her for thinking this time was going to be any different than the last. She clenched her jaw tightly, stifling her cries so she wouldn't wake Ratchet who was in dire need of a recharge.

_** "I'm going to frag you until I overload. Now tell me, do you like it, Nightstalker? THIS is rape, you pathetic glitch!"**_

Nightstalker bit her lip so hard it bled, yanking away from her phantom rapist, feeling his claws raking down her wings, tearing into her interfacing paneling. She shuddered, falling from the berth she writhed so much. It was a wonder Ratchet didn't wake up at the sound—a tantamount to his exhaustion. Tears sped down her cheeks.

_You don't control me. Don't touch me! DON'T TOUCH ME! You're not overlord of my mind! Get out! Leave me alone!_

Smokescreen's words haunted her: don't let him walk all over you, and come back better and stronger. Wheeljack: Buck up and toughen up. And Fowler—

Wait, what did Fowler say?

_** "How does it feel, slut? Do you like it!"**_

A tiny, pathetic noise keened from between her tightly clenched teeth. Nightstalker jerked, hot and phantom pains slicing across her body. Her knees turned inward as she trembled on the floor of the silo, wings fanning a mile a minute.

_No. No, that's not what he said. What did he say? Just wanted to make sure I was doing all right. What else, what else?_

Panic scorched through her systems, wanting to lock her into a battle mode as she slashed out when she thought she saw a glint of Megatron's optics gleaming through the darkness at her.

_** "This little wench is going to wish I had never let her live a day after Kaon."**_

Nightstalker took a ragged gasp, crawling away from Ratchet so she wouldn't wake him. These were her demons, not his. He could only chase them away, not defeat them. Pain sawed through her lower extremities, crushing in until the pressure made her want to crack, sparking all the way into her fingertips. Every fiber of her body howled in pain, locked in the bloodied rape Megatron had meted out on her.

_Get out of my head, you wretched glitch! I hate you! I've always hated you! Get out! Leave me alone! You won't win, by Primus, I won't let you win again . . . That's IT!_ Her jaw clenched; her hands fisted. She ended up scooting further away from Ratchet, seething in fury at Megatron and writhing so hard that her paint was beginning to scrape off. She jerked, hitting the computers as she sought to push herself upright.

_THAT'S IT! Get out! You've ruled over me enough! You've taken enough from me, and I'm not going to let you take any more! Get the frag off my back! I won't let you take anything else from me, my life is MINE! You can stay the frag out of it, got it? Frag off! This is it, and I'm not—_

She paused, quivering with ire as her rapidly processing mind suddenly registered her own words. _This is it._ Oh. THAT'S what Fowler had said! The song! Out of all the fragging things he could have said and he gives her a song? He had to think it must be important. Or wait—his wife suggested it, he had passed along the word. Suddenly wondering about this song, Nightstalker looked up at the computer she was situated beneath.

She swallowed. After starting at the feat like it was a mountain she needed to climb, Nightstalker pulled her legs in, tucking her feet under her.

_Hey, just between you and me? The first step's always the hardest._

Nightstalker clenched her jaw so tight her throat jumped, and using the inspiration of Smokescreen's flirty words and the meager strength of her arms, she grasped the edge of the computer and heaved as hard as she could, managing to lurch up and into the side of it. With a gasp and a grit of her teeth, Nightstalker locked her knees before they could buckle and straightened herself, standing up at the computer controls.

She puffed a moment, trying to get used to the fact that she had just done something monumental without someone else as a crutch. She had stood—all on her own. After pausing to soak in that realization, Nightstalker's claws tapped the keys of the computer, pulling up the song Fowler had briefly mentioned. Keeping it turned extremely low so she wouldn't disturb Ratchet, she let it play, a smooth R&B beat playing out:

_Check it out, ya'll  
>(There've been times in my life)<br>I'm tired and I wanna give up  
>(I've been wondering why)<br>Why is the world gettin' so crazy?  
>(Still, somehow I believe)<br>I've come too far to die now  
>(I always survive)<br>If you're a survivor, get up!  
>Let's get it!<em>

Nightstalker jumped when the song suddenly picked up with a heavy soul, gospel beat, bass pumping and a chorus of women kicking in to sing around the man. Nightstalker instinctively darted a glance to Ratchet to make sure he didn't wake up, but her attention quickly became riveted to the words:

_Gonna cry now, go ahead and get it out of my system  
>Know I'm hurt now, but soon I gotta get back to livin'<br>Can't be here next year, givin' you these same tears  
>Hope you enjoyed it, 'cause it's the last time you'll take a piece of me<em>

_It start right now, I don't know how I'm gonna get thru it_  
><em>I'm broke right now, I pray somehow 'cause I can't do it<em>  
><em>Can't keep livin' like this, there's gotta be more than this<em>  
><em>Jesus, I'm ready, I'm ready for what you have for me<em>

Nightstalker blinked at the words, the inspirational rhythm rocking quietly as she absorbed it, immediately paralleling it to Megatron. And, the only thing she could think was—

It was so RIGHT.

_(Are you gonna wait for a sign?)  
>Are you ready for your miracle<br>God's people it's time to (stand up and fight)  
>Let's get it, let's get it<br>This is it!  
>You can't mess with my mind anymore<br>This is it!  
>I'm smarter, see I've been here before<br>This is it!  
>It's a new day, I'm not afraid anymore<br>This is it!  
>Yes, I believe, if you believe, help me say<br>This is it!_

Ha . . . This is it. Was it really? Could she really throw him off her back? As the doubt crept back in so did the phantom pains. She stiffened. Of course she could do this! She was standing on her own!

_I look back now, I look at how you tried to break me_  
><em>To take my life, my peace of mind and drive me crazy<em>  
><em>My self esteem, my dreams, my destiny<em>  
><em>So, God allowed it, because He knew He had big plans for me (Hallelujah!)<em>

_It's your grace, I know today it's how I made it (Thank You, Jesus)_  
><em>When I thought that it was over (Lord, have mercy)<em>

As the chorus played again, Nightstalker straightened her shoulders with faint bravado, a sudden urge to fight back taking her as the music played quietly to her. That was right. Megatron DIDN'T own her. Never again. She wouldn't allow it. She felt rather silly taking such inspiration from a song, but the music was powerful.

_Everybody that's been holdin' you down, look at 'em and tell 'em  
>This is it!<br>I feel my help coming on right now, ya'll  
>You think that maybe it's over (You're life ain't over)<br>Not unless you want it to be  
>(Are you gonna wait for a sign?) your miracle<br>(stand up and fight)_

Thinking of Megatron, Nightstalker whispered to herself, to him, "This is it." She had to make a choice. Now. She couldn't wallow around in self-pity anymore, if she wanted something done, she was going to have to do it. It was make it or break it time. And, considering that she'd already been broken to a million pieces, inside and out, the only thing left to do was make it.

For Raf. For Bumblebee. For Smokescreen, Ratchet, Optimus, everyone. They all cared, and she couldn't let them down. Not now. Not after all they had done for her.

_This is it ya'll, this is it ya'll  
>You've been waitin' and debating , here it is, ya'll<br>All your stuff from your past, shake it off ya'll  
>Though they said you wouldn't last, who you is ya'll?<br>Want your dreams back? Let's get it!  
>Your peace of mind back? Let's get it!<br>Want your family back? Let's get it!  
>Are you ready? Let's get it! (This is it!)<br>I speak against everything that comes to destroy the purpose in your life  
>This is it!<br>Worrying about your finances, your future, when you can't even sleep at night  
>This is it!<br>I speak against depression and fear, every attack from the enemy  
>This is it!<br>This is your day, the Lord made it baby! God has set you free!  
>This is it!<em>

Nightstalker began to groove to the music, bobbing her head a little with the switch of banging rhythms in the rap. The stuff from her past? Nightstalker felt herself roll her shoulders, mentally letting Megatron's hands shake away. He thought he was a whore—not anymore. She wouldn't let him violate her like that anymore. Her dreams? She would do whatever it took for them. Her peace of mind? She sure as hell was going to get a restful night of sleep. Her family? Tears sparked in her optics, and she hit the computer three times with the words: _ This is it._ She'd prove Dreadwing wrong. She might not be worthy of his love, but she sure as hell wasn't going to let him go without a fight. Not Knockout either. And Bumblebee? Could she trust him to make a fraternal bond with her? She was willing to make the gamble at the moment with adrenaline starting to rush in her systems.

_You can't mess with my mind anymore  
>This is it!<br>I'm smarter, see I've been here before  
>This is it!<br>It's a new day, I'm not afraid anymore  
>This is it!<br>I wanna hear ya'll sing this with your boy!  
>Every body say:<br>This is it!_

_You can't mess with my mind anymore_  
><em>This is it!<em>  
><em>I'm smarter, see I've been here before<em>  
><em>This is it!<em>  
><em>It's a new day, I'm not afraid anymore<em>  
><em>This is it!<em>  
><em>Yes, I believe, if you believe, help me say<em>  
><em>This is it!<em>

The song ended. Nightstalker stood, wings slowly fluttering as recognition dawned across her features.

This WAS it. Time to get a move on, get to work. She was going to get her life back in gear, back under HER control, not Megatron's. She only wished she had realized this sooner, but could only attest that there was no backing down now. She started the song again, ready to fix it. She would make everything right again. She could do it—she KNEW she could, even if she had to crawl to make it.

And, when the softer start of the song dropped the beat into a heavy gospel track, Nightstalker shamelessly took the volume—

And cranked it.

Cranked it MIKO loud.

_Gonna cry now, go ahead and get it out of my system  
>Know I'm hurt now, but soon I gotta get back to livin'<br>Can't be here next year, givin' you these same tears  
>Hope you enjoyed it, 'cause it's the last time you'll take a piece of me<em>

Ratchet woke instantly with a shout on the other side of the silo, but Nightstalker barely heard him, sucked into the music:

Gonna cry now, go ahead and get it out of my system—she already had. She hurt now, yes, but she was going to live by her rules. She wouldn't cry for Megatron anymore—the last time she would give in.

_It start right now, I don't know how I'm gonna get thru it  
>I'm broke right now, I pray somehow 'cause I can't do it<br>Can't keep livin' like this, there's gotta be more than this  
>Jesus, I'm ready, I'm ready for what you have for me<em>

It started right now. Nightstalker didn't know what to do, but she knew she was standing. And that was more than she had done for weeks. Broken, but pieced together by her friends—her family. She was ready to move on. Ratchet called her name, trying to find her, and Nightstalker knew his search would be short.

_(Are you gonna wait for a sign?)  
>Are you ready for your miracle<br>God's people it's time to (stand up and fight)  
>Let's get it, let's get it<br>This is it!_

No. She wasn't going to wait for some sign, she took her miracle as even living at all through the miracle of Ratchet's hands and wisdom. Stand up and fight. Her shoulders squared.

"This is it."

She couldn't even hear her words over the music, but she had said them. She wasn't giving in now.

_You can't mess with my mind anymore  
>This is it!<em>

Oh no. Megatron wasn't allowed in her processor anymore. Banished. Dug up by the roots and cast aside, and she refused to let vile offal like that corrupt her any longer.

"This is it." She said it with more strength than last time, hand fisting and hitting the computer with each word.

_I'm smarter, see I've been here before  
>This is it!<em>

She knew better than to go back to Megatron. He was a pathetic wretch, evil, and she would NEVER let him have her again!

"This is it!" Nightstalker finally lifted her voice up, fist pounding the computer three hard times.

_It's a new day, I'm not afraid anymore  
>This is it!<em>

She wasn't afraid! No! Not with her family here to support her, to protect her, to never let her down like her Decepticon ties had! She was safe here, and protected and loved. She had all she needed.

She shouted, filling up with passion she hadn't felt in weeks. "THIS IS IT!" She hit the computer again to her words, reinforcing them.

_Yes, I believe, if you believe, help me say  
>This is it!<em>

"I believe!" Nightstalker cried out, impassioned tears beading in her optics. "This it it!" she screamed, banging the computer forcefully with each word. "THIS IS IT! _THIS IS IT!"_

She shook with fervent zeal, and she looked up to see Ratchet looking at her, taking in her standing position. He didn't say anything above the music; she didn't say anything back. Instead, she just gave a silent nod, biting her lip and blinking back the tears as she drew strength from that gaze.

He moved without a word. He first guided her back to the floor with gentle servos, and then, the gentle was over. Nightstalker gritted her teeth as she let him bend her legs, stretching them nearly brutally, but she wanted it. The pain was good—it was weakness, and it was leaving her body.

The song was looping. It rumbled with heavy bass lines through the silo, loud enough to wake all the others. Smokescreen was the first to make it to the entrance of the silo, Bumblebee quick on his heels, and he gave one long, loud howl of triumph, punching Bumblebee's shoulder. Bumblebee teared up at the sight of Ratchet helping Nightstalker stretch her hamstrings, bending her over and holding her steady when she wanted to straighten. With a shrill sound of happiness, Bumblebee threw his arms around the closest thing to hug—which so happened to be Smokescreen. With a laugh, Smokescreen slung an arm around the scout and pumped his other fist up with a hoot.

Optimus was next, swift and quiet on his feet as he looked over the two younger bots' heads. His spark full of turmoil soothed some as he looked at Nightstalker's sudden rejuvenation in the middle of the night, and a smile softly curled his lips.

Arcee came up, pushing her way in front of the mechs to get a good look, and she merely smirked, impressed at Nightstalker and her fortitude. Cliffjumper was next with Bulkhead, and Bulkhead just laughed, shouting, faintly heard above the music, "Atta girl, Nights!"

Cliffjumper just stared. His spark stirred with affection, admiration that she refused to give up. For once, looking at her, his spark didn't pain at the sight of her—she was healing.

In fact, the Autobots didn't move for a few minutes, just watching as Ratchet helped her in the first steps of gaining her strength back. Nightstalker couldn't think past what came next—the pain was too excruciating, but by Primus if she was going to give up now. She had survived the most brutal rape. A little pain like this was easy! She chanted that to herself as she gritted her teeth and let Ratchet push some pressure and force her knee up to her chest and stretch her taunt, weak muscles. She swore; she cried; she screamed. Anything to help with the pain and urged Ratchet to ignore it, she was fine, she wanted to get walking. She begged to be able to walk, and so he guided her legs through the motions, helping her remember how to do it.

The Autobots slowly dispersed. Bulkhead first because he knew she was going to be fine. Arcee next. Smokescreen headed out, quickly bored even though he knew it was exactly what she needed. Bumblebee stayed watching until his optics began to whir shut in exhaustion and only then did he retreat to his berth room.

It left only Optimus and Cliffjumper. Optimus watched Ratchet help Nightstalker stand, taking her hands gently in his and letting her use her arm strength to hold herself up. Her legs moved awkwardly. But, when she finally got the first successful step beneath her, her optics seemed to flare in triumph and she struggled to get her other leg to do the same. The gangly and abnormal walk was painstakingly slow, but Ratchet's mouth would move sometimes with support and he always kept her hands clasped in his in support.

It was then Optimus looked over at his company, Cliffjumper. And his optics widened a fraction. Cliffjumper's optics were riveted on the sight of them, passionate and yearning. It took Optimus half a nanoclick to deduce it:

He loved her.

Sure, they had clearly established that he was infatuated her with the huff Arcee had shown them all, but he hadn't truly thought it had been something as deep as love. But it explained it all. His constant queries to Ratchet about her health, his drive to get stronger so he could protect her, and maybe even why he couldn't bring himself to speak to her—

After all, Optimus couldn't fathom how the mech could tell the femme he loved that he was let and watched her get raped within an inch of her life.

Eventually, even Optimus retreated back to his berth room in need of a recharge, brooding on the impact of change Megatron's rape had left on Nightstalker and Cliffjumper. Only Cliffjumper remained, watching his loved one with swelling pride and relief.

Ratchet eventually deemed enough was enough. Nightstalker pleaded to go to the berth as the last stretch, and the gospel music rolled thunderously about them. Wordlessly, Ratchet allowed it as she struggled to keep her legs moving. He contacted her comm. link so he could speak with her with the music on so loud.

:_Why now?:_

Nightstalker's answer was slow in coming. :_A combination of reasons, really. Smokescreen and Wheeljack's words hit me really hard.:_

_ :Why? What did they say different?:_

_ :That they wouldn't let Megatron get away with it.: _Nightstalker let that sink in a moment. _:I don't know. Everyone coddled me like I was going to break at any second.:_

_ :You were.:_

_ :Regardless. They were the first to treat me like a femme and not a rape victim.:_ Nightstalker paused, grumbling snappishly under her breath when her foot didn't want to place right. _:For some reason, I needed that and the promise of revenge more than anything else. I think I just wanted to be treated normally. I didn't want to be treated like a rape victim. It was like a constant reminder of what happened.:_

Ratchet's shoulders slumped. _:I'm sorry.:_

_ :That's your job, don't apologize. No one needs to. I was being moody—:_

_ :With good reason.:_

_ :—and I should have just realized you guys were trying to help. I appreciate that now.: _She paused. _:You most of all.:_

There was a short silence as Nightstalker's weight shifted from left to right as she brought her leg forward haltingly, pain and exhaustion driving her nuts.

_:Me?:_

_ :Yeah. You were always there. Even when you were exhausted and needed rest you helped me with anything and everything, and when I petulantly demanded you fix my wrists you did so without complaint even though it stretched your systems thin, you lose your recharge when I wake you up screaming but you still comfort me, and you're always there when I need you the most.: _Nightstalker paused. She focused on shuffling another foot forward, only a couple more strides from the berth. Her hands tightened on his. _:So thanks. I . . . wouldn't be here without you.:_

They both paused then. The music boomed around them, a stark comparison to the tender bond forming between them. After a moment, Ratchet scooped her up and carried her the last few steps to the berth, pinging back, _:Thank you. But it's my job.:_

Nightstalker stared up at him when he tried to downplay it. _:Don't talk like that. You did more than needed. We both know that.:_

Ratchet merely walked over to the computer, turned the music down and shut if off before he returned to his berth. He sank down without a word, avoiding her gaze.

Nightstalker swallowed slightly, looking over at him with emotion brimming up. "Ratchet," she whispered softly into the too-quiet silence, "thank you. I mean that. From the bottom of my spark."

He finally looked at her, a concealed emotion floating just behind the shield of his optics. Unabashed devotion flooded from his optics. "It was my pleasure," he finally rasped back.

A beat of silence in which their optics held, and Nightstalker was the first to look away shyly. She lied back on her berth for her recharge with a fluttering spark that suddenly felt warmer than it should with a sense of protection and faithfulness. She resisted an almost uncontrollable urge to go cuddle up by his side to that welcoming chassis.

Instead, she tried to quell the fluttering unrest of her spark and get the rest she so needed.


	45. Sweet Closure

Cliffjumper shifted, sneaking a glance over at Nightstalker. Her face was currently screwed up in pain as Ratchet helped her work her legs, and he could faintly hear her cursing from where he stood.

He shifted uncomfortably. After a moment of looking at the floor, he looked up at Optimus's back. He took a very steady vent, trying to bolster his own courage. It was silly to be worried, but it was almost a taboo subject he would be breaching . . . He glanced back to Nightstalker whose hand was now digging into Ratchet's forearm.

Taking another deep breath, Cliffjumper walked up to Optimus and stood quietly, respectively to the side as he waited for the Prime to acknowledge. After a moment, the Prime finished his line of thought and turned towards Cliffjumper.

Cliffjumper inclined his body to him. "Optimus."

Optimus nodded, coming to full attention as Cliffjumper seemed to be much more professional than his usual. "What is it, Cliffjumper?"

He shifted. "Well, um . . . I have a request."

Optimus gave a regal nod. "What is it you wish?"

Cliffjumper dropped his head and passed a hand over his optics. "Um . . ." He vented tightly, rubbing his forehead. "If it's not too much trouble . . . I'd like to ask for a pole for Nightstalker."

The Prime didn't respond for a moment, as if he hadn't heard him right, and finally repeated, "A pole?"

A touch of heat scratched Cliffjumper's throat. "W-Well . . . Y-Yeah. A dancing pole. I mean—I know it's pole dancing, don't get me wrong," and he immediately launched into a nervous spill, "but it's not as derogatory as you're thinking it is, it really isn't—I mean! Well, when I saw—maybe it was, but it's really not. What I saw wasn't just a show, she has a part of her spark in that, it was like after she flew. You know what she looked like after she flew! She was like a totally different femme. That's what it was like when she was dancing on that pole, she changed; she wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before, and since she obviously can't transform and fly to get rid of her stress, I thought the pole would be a good idea. Besides, she needs to gain her strength and this would . . . give her some . . . initiative . . ."

Cliffjumper stuttered to a halt, blushing furiously for having to explain this to the Prime but also for the heat he gathered up just by remembering the scene. He tried to push it out of his mind—it created an insatiable heat to remember the graceful flex of her body, the strength and passion she had thrown into the dance in Megatron's private quarters, and the sultry part of her lips whenever she ground her hips against the pole. Sometimes, when he was alone, all he could think about was what he had seen. What he had heard. What he had felt. The arch of her frame. The heat of fire raging inside him and the urge to take Nightstalker for himself.

He shivered minutely to himself, warming at the mere thought of it—it wasn't right to think like that. Not after she had been raped. It was wrong, and he refused to become Megatron and make her his victim. It sickened him whenever his mind wanted to slip off in the direction of an indulging fantasy.

With a shaky breath, Cliffjumper passed a hand over his optics and looked away, controlling his trembling. "Please, Optimus," he finally rasped, voice rough with passion. He cleared it as quietly as he could, muttering, "I just . . . think it would be good for her . . ."

Sensing the mech's discomfort, Optimus reached out to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. Cliffjumper stiffened a moment, but then his tension drained. "Do not trouble yourself," Optimus said quietly. "I will contact Agent Fowler and see what he can do to help in regards to Nightstalker's rehabilitation."

Cliffjumper's shoulders slumped. Whether in relief or defeat, Optimus would never know.

"Thanks."

* * *

><p>"I can't believe you took inspiration from that stupid song."<p>

"I can't believe you're mocking me about what got me back up on my feet."

"I also can't believe that you threatened me with your whips. I'm not that bad, am I?"

"Getting worse by the minute, and if you don't stop harassing me, I'll make you believe in my whips."

"Aw, shucks, you wouldn't hurt little ol' me! Besides, you're still too weak to really hurt me."

"I wouldn't have to. I can get Ratchet on your annoying little aft in half a nanoclick and you'll be wishing you had shut up when I told you to."

"Ouch. All right, all right, I'm going."

Smokescreen trotted off to avoid the deadly wrath of Ratchet-the-Hatchet while Nightstalker hobbled on, this time using Bulkhead's hands as leeway. A completely different atmosphere had taken the base—with everyone on the road to recovery, the heavy haze that had covered them seemed to lift, and things looked up considerably. More smiles. More jokes. More laughter. And Nightstalker could stand to be touched by people, thank the dear Primus above.

Bulkhead chuckled above her. "You handle him like a pro."

"Annoying like my brother."

"So Fli-Ni was cute like Bumblebee, and annoying and fidgety like Smokescreen."

Nightstalker smiled down at her peds as she struggled to walk. "Yeah . . . But don't get me wrong, he was as serious as he was silly." She paused then. "Oh, scrap . . ."

"What?"

Nightstalker swallowed, stopping as she looked down at her peds. "I guess he got his free spirit from mom . . ."

Bulkhead's confused voice grew concerned. "Nights?"

Nightstalker gave a heavy vent and sat back down on the medical berth that had all but gained the imprint of her body from sleeping there for so long. "Bulkhead, can you get everyone over here a minute?"

Bulkhead paused, looking over. "Everyone? Including Optimus?"

Nightstalker knew he was very busy decoding the Iacon database, but she nodded. "Yeah. Even him. You all should know. I'm not keeping secrets anymore."

Sensing her discomfort, Bulkhead chucked her chin supportively before he headed off, big voice booming that Nightstalker needed to talk to them all. Nightstalker's wings fluttered nervously. She looked for Cliffjumper, but the red mech avoided her optics, instead looking to the side as he hid slightly behind Bulkhead.

Ratchet stepped forward, to her side so not all of them would be looking at her at once. "What is it, Nightstalker?"

"Yeah," Miko chimed in with a slight frown puckering her brow. "What's up?"

Nightstalker took a deep breath before sighing, fanning her wings. She focused on her toes. "A long time ago, back when I had, um, attacked Optimus over Fli-Ni, I promised him that I wouldn't keep secrets anymore, that I would be honest with him," she finally started in. She felt everyone shift their attention briefly to the commander before they all focused back on her. "And . . . If I'm going to be honest with Optimus, I'm going to be honest with you all. So . . . I've got some things I need to tell you."

Okay, so far so good. Bumblebee gestured slightly in encouragement, optics riveted to her. Nightstalker took a steadying cycle. "So, um . . . I went back to the Decepticons because I needed some answers about my family, and Dreadwing knew my mother."

*He did?* Bumblebee interrupted. *How?*

Nightstalker fluttered her wings. "I met him the night Starscream spared Arcee, and he thought for a second that I was her." She paused. "So yeah. I went back because of that, but I also went back because I felt like I owed Megatron my life because he let me survive Kaon." She gave a derisive snort. "Of course, now I know he's nothing but a good for nothing aft, but I had this misguided conception that I owed my life to him and I guessed that he could do whatever he wanted to me, and that's probably the real reason I let him frag me all my life." It hurt to admit she had been so stupid, but it also felt good to have it off her chest. June had been right about her needed to say these things aloud to someone.

Nightstalker gave a shrug of her shoulder. "In reality, the one I owe my life to is Knockout." A start through all of the Autobots. Nightstalker continued without pause, "He was the 'Con that found me, the one that pleaded my case of being useful when I really wasn't and somehow got Megatron to believe him, and the medic that repaired me and took care of me. And he . . ." She looked down, unwilling to look at Bumblebee when she said this. "He's my half brother."

Complete silence blanketed the medical area. Finally, Arcee broke the silence first, saying, "You mean he's your brother?"

Nightstalker shook her helm. "No. Half brother. The bond was never completed, and I don't think Knockout ever had intentions of completing it. I can't say it was accidental. He knew exactly what he was doing. But he never really wanted to be fully bonded with me."

A soft little whir from Bumblebee touched her audio receptors. *So . . . Knockout. I . . . wasn't expecting that* Nightstalker gave a weak laugh. Neither had she. She couldn't bear to see the look on his face now that he had learned that the femme he wanted to become siblings with was siblings with his rival.

Jack leaned against the railing. "You said Knockout never intended to complete the bond, but it wasn't accidental. If he didn't really want it, why did he do it?"

Nightstalker opened her mouth to respond, realized she didn't have the answer, and she closed her mouth. Why, indeed? Did he really care for her? Did he have ulterior motives for her? Was he just afraid that Megatron would punish him for letting her die when he planned for her to be a torturer? Or maybe, it was just a knee-jerk moment where he had done whatever it took to keep her alive before thinking about it?  
>She sighed. "I don't know. He cares about me, I could swear he does, but . . . When I—when Megatron raped me, I tried calling to him for help and he just slammed the door on me no matter how much I begged." She stopped and scrubbed her fists over her optics before she managed to take a tight breath and say, "So I don't know anymore why. He says he didn't regret it, but . . ."<p>

Raf puzzled, pushing up his glasses. "Nightstalker? How do you guys suddenly decide to be siblings?"

"Our sparks," Nightstalker said. Before anyone had time to react, she had stood wobbly, took a step towards the balcony and braced herself. Ratchet's hands hovered close to help, but all the bots in the room but Ratchet turned their heads away when Nightstalker opened up her chassis for the humans.

It was strange for Nightstalker to realize after getting raped she had almost no bounds of modesty anymore. It didn't bother her to be seen, but if she was touched? That was still different. She pointed to her spark, telling them, "This is like my heart. It keeps me alive."

The scratches had healed over, thank Primus, so the kids would never know that Megatron had raped her here—or even that side of its function. She looped her finger around her secondary sloital artery for them to see. "This is my secondary sloital artery. Knockout said it was the one that stabilizes our sparks, lets them beat regularly, kind of like a pacer. It's also the artery that we can unhook and hook to another mech or femme for bonding." She paused, sorting her thoughts as she heard Ratchet give a faint grumble behind her at what she was implying. "It's a trust thing, the basic for bonding. Your spark would be fully connected to another's body, therefore you would rely on one another fully. It's a must for sibling bonds, though there are other links needed, links that Knockout didn't attach. Therefore, my half brother."

"Or half a spark mate," Ratchet muttered under his breath.

Nightstalker heard it and wrinkled her nose at the thought as she closed her spark chamber doors. "Ratchet, just . . . EW. No."

"So why did he even decide to do that?" Arcee finally asked. She crossed her arms and shifted. "I mean . . . If he didn't really want the bond, why would he start it?"

Nightstalker fluttered her wings again. "He did spark surgery on me when I was little, right out of Kaon. He said my secondary sloital artery wasn't functional, and I was dying, so he hooked me to him to buy some time to make me a new one."

Ratchet grumbled wordlessly again, but with the inflection of tone Nightstalker knew it was hopeless jealously. To know the Decepticons had that kind of biomechanics in their stash—albeit long ago, they may still have some—the kind of biomechanics that the Autobots didn't have, the stuff that could fix Bumblebee's vocals and Nightstalker's valve . . . It burned as a low ache in his chassis.

Feeling no need to explain the last point—not that she really could, anyways—Nightstalker added blandly, "Dreadwing is Fli-Ni's dad."

That got another rise. Optimus frowned. "You are sure?"

"He told me so," Nightstalker said. "Pretty much, he bonded with my mom and had Fli-Ni, but when he began to rise in the Decepticon ranks, Mom didn't want to become a target and so she changed Fli-Ni's helm so it wouldn't look like his dad's. Dreadwing couldn't forgive her for that disgrace, apparently severed the bond and left."

Ratchet made another sound in the back of his throat, murmuring so quietly that even Nightstalker almost missed it, "The kind of strength it would take to break a bond by force of will . . ."

Nightstalker tried to forget it the second she heard it. "Anyways, Mom obviously found my dad at some point and bonded with him and had me. But yeah, Dreadwing is Fli-Ni's dad. I . . ." She trailed off, tapping her toes and fluttering her wings nervously. "It makes sense. I always wondered where Fli-Ni got that strange little accent of his . . . Now I know."

It was subtle in Fli-Ni, his accent not as pronounced as Dreadwing's, but it was there. Nightstalker could have slapped herself for not realizing it earlier. "So that's my spill," Nightstalker finally said. "Knockout's my half-brother, Dreadwing's my step-dad, and I let Megatron do whatever he wanted with me because I thought I owed my life to him."

Smokescreen shook his head, saying, "Scrap, you're really dug in deep with the 'Cons, aren't you?" He shook his head. "Family flying around everywhere. You didn't figure out who your dad was? Dreadwing didn't know?"

Nightstalker shook her head. "He didn't know. He didn't even know Fli-Ni had died." She gave a sour laugh. "As for my father, I'm starting to think he can just stay lost. At the rate I'm going, I'm going to look up one day and find out that Soundwave's my dad."

Optimus stepped forward, laying his gentle hand on her shoulder and meeting her optics. "We thank you for your honesty," he said to her. "The things you have just told us are nothing easy to share, and I admire your strength." Nightstalker shifted uncomfortably, not used to that kind of compliment, and Optimus misread her movement and immediately let go, thinking she was still squeamish of touch.

Optimus immediately excused himself to the Iacon database while the others filtered away more slowly, a hug from Bumblebee, a nod from Arcee, annoying light punches from both Smokescreen and Bulkhead. She looked to Cliffjumper, but he still didn't quite look at her as he moved off, calling out to Bulkhead.

Only Ratchet stayed next to her. His hand landed on her shoulder, and because he was so worried, his hand grasped her a little tighter than prudent. "You know . . . If we end up having to kill Knockout . . . the glue holding you together wouldn't be there."

Nightstalker gave a little nod. "I know."

There was a heavy beat of silence, and Ratchet's hand tightened to almost crushing. "Don't break," he rasped. "I won't let you."

Her spark flipped. There was a little too much promise in those words. "Thanks."

He just turned back to his computers. "Don't thank me yet . . ."

* * *

><p>"June? Is it wrong for me to . . . just want to overload again, with pleasure, just to erase Megatron's touch?"<p>

Nightstalker wasn't sure when she stopped calling the nurse Ms. Darby and began to call her June, but she could only conclude that it had happened sometime between when she had finally gotten through the entirety of Megatron's rape and now.

"Of course not," June eased her mind easily. She was on her lunch break—the kids were at school, and nearly every bot out scouting energon. Optimus and Ratchet were the exceptions, Optimus pinned to the computer and puzzling at the Iacon database and Ratchet working somewhere in the back out of respect to the femme's privacy. "It's perfectly natural, and actually, many women have the same thought at some point."

Nightstalker shifted on the berth next to the nurse. "Really?" She paused. A faint hope, so faint it hurt, bloomed in her chassis. "Does it work?"

June paused, contemplating the thought. "Honestly, Nightstalker, I think it varies between women. Not many have the determination to go through having sex again because they're still so scarred by the rape. Many can't even fathom letting another man touch them. I've only known one woman to actually go through with it."

Nightstalker clenched her fists as she looked down on the small human. "Did it work for her?" she asked quietly again.

"To an extent." When Nightstalker gave her a blank look, June elaborated. "You see, she had a best friend, and with mutual consent, they had sex. Now, afterwards she said it was most likely the best thing she had ever done because she felt so much better afterwards. She became stronger, more determined, and more confident. However . . . She fell in love a few years later, and she found she was scared to let her loved one touch her."

Nightstalker blinked owlishly down at June, trying to wrap her processor around that concept. "Really?" She paused. "Did she ever get comfortable enough to do it?"

June nodded, picking absently at her food. "Oh yes, she did. She's living happily now with her son, two daughters and her husband."

Nightstalker's brows pinched. "So . . . How did she do it?"

The nurse shook her head. "She never said. All I know now is that she's happy." June paused a moment, setting her fork aside and looking up at the femme before her. "Honestly, Nightstalker, I think it would take a great deal of trust. After all, you would be allowing him to touch you, not just physically, but to touch your heart again. If you're going to do this, just please, make sure it's with a mech that can cherish you for who you are."

Nightstalker nodded her promise, biting her lip as the nurse excused herself so she could head back to work.

Her processor was alive and abuzz with this new information. She wanted to do it. With June's consent and greater knowledge of the subject, she felt more comfortable and that she wasn't going to be making some dreadful mistake.

The easy part was choosing to do it. An easier part would be reaching an overload. The hard part?

Who in PIT was she going to get to overload her?

Bumblebee never even made it to the list, and Smokescreen and Wheeljack were both scratched off just as quick. The two mechs had her best interests in mind, that seemed certain, but she didn't know them well enough. She didn't trust them enough. Her mind drifted to Bulkhead. She was sure he would be gentle, but she couldn't honestly imagine the gentle giant doing such a thing, even if to help her. He would fall into a stuttering, blushing mess.

That quickly left her dwindling options to Optimus, Ratchet, and Cliffjumper.

Her spark squeezed uncomfortably at the thought of Cliffjumper. Sure, there had been an attraction at first, but . . . Her wings fanned slowly as she brooded to herself. No. Pit no, she couldn't do that with him, her insides flipped at the mere thought of it. Besides, he had watched her get raped. There was no way he would agree to touch her filthy hide after that.

But, Ratchet or Optimus? She sighed in distress, alone at the medical berths. She was sure Ratchet would help her if she asked, but . . . she just felt so bad for asking so much of the medic. It wasn't fair of her to ask. Still, she was certain his hands would be as gentle as they always were, and he would know in that special way of his when he pushed her too far and what spots to avoid so she wouldn't have a relapse of fear. Ratchet was tucked away as a wild card, an emergency backup that she would only use if she absolutely needed him.

That left Optimus. Nightstalker's mind grinded to a halt. Optimus. She could see him all too willingly agreeing. He might be large, intimidating even, but his spark was soft, his touch soft, and he was compassionate to a fault. She was sure he wouldn't hurt her . . . right? An uncomfortable feeling squirmed in her stomach. But after he had kissed her that one time . . . so full of uncontrolled passion . . . Her wings fluttered nervously. Was that really a good idea? Who was to say he wouldn't lose himself in that lust and take her as violently as Megatron had?

She shivered. No. She didn't believe Optimus could be like that.

But her processor ran in circles. She flipped back and forth between all the mechs available (save for Bumblebee) and even let her mind wander to Arcee, but eventually resolved that she wouldn't be comfortable with a femme. With a sigh, Nightstalker picked up the cane Bulkhead had fashioned for her (compliments of his function as a prior construction worker) she hefted herself up and began to hobble to the back to find Ratchet.

She needed some advice. Pit she needed it. She couldn't make a decision and she was worrying herself thin just thinking about it.

But, as she continued to limp weakly down the halls, she became more and more worried. Did she really want this? Was it just a move of being desperate? She had all reasons to be desperate to erase Megatron's touch. Could she really do it? What if she had a breakdown in the middle of it? Or worse, what if he didn't STOP? Oh Primus, she couldn't take being raped again—!

Before she could stop and turn around and go back and forget she even had the thought, Ratchet was walking down the hall to her. His optics popped, not expecting her to try to go so far on her own and he hurried forward.

"Nightstalker, what is it?"

Bracing her full weight on the cane, she debated quietly to herself. Fli-Ni always did say you missed 100% of the things you don't try. So she ought to try, right? There was nothing to lose, if the little bit of dignity she had scraped up.

She took a breath. "Ratchet . . . I want to . . . I want to overwrite what Megatron did to me."

Ratchet hesitated. "Meaning?"

"Meaning I want someone to interface with me." There was a pause. She dropped her head. "I just . . . want your opinion. I mean . . . Who could I go to?"

"Nightstalker . . ." Ratchet hesitated at the sight of his fragile patient, and he finally vented after considering the options. "If you would like to . . . overwrite what Megatron did to you . . . Perhaps you should look to Optimus."

Nightstalker looked up with wide optics. "Optimus?" she repeated dumbly. Even if she had expected something along the lines of that, she couldn't really believe it.

Ratchet nodded. "He . . ." He stopped and rearranged his thoughts. "It's no secret he desires you," Ratchet said. "That pent up desire is just taxing his mind and body with a strain he does not need. And if you both are in need of sexual release, it seems fitting that it should be each other. Beyond that, Optimus blames himself for what happened to you. It would be a good therapy for him to realize that just because he lusts for you like Megatron did, his lust won't hurt you."

Nightstalker trembled a moment at the thought before looking up with innocent optics at Ratchet. "He won't hurt me?" she asked softly.

Ratchet felt his spark slowly break. "Of course he won't," Ratchet said firmly. "He would never, no matter what." When Nightstalker gave a small nod, Ratchet added, "I think it would be good for you both. You could finally resolve this mess and put it behind you."

Nightstalker nodded again, crossing her arms. "Thanks, Ratchet," she said quietly.

It was about what she had thought. Still, Ratchet noted her uncomfortable stance that had nothing to do with her pain of standing. He shifted, frowning. "Nightstalker? What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Can I—" She licked her lips nervously, wings fluttering. "Can I have a moment alone with him?"

Ratchet nodded easily, saying, "I'm sure I can find something to occupy myself with." In saying so, he gave her one last worried look before disappearing back down the hall.

Nightstalker took a steadying breath and limped back to the main room of the silo. Optimus still hadn't moved from his stance at the computer, optics roving restlessly with endless amounts of information scrolling before his optics. Nightstalker fluttered her wings and moved forward, and she cleared her throat.

"Uh . . . Optimus . . . ?"

Optimus paused in his work at the sound of Nightstalker's small voice. Turning around to face her in the main room of the silo, Optimus saw her standing cowardly, shoulders hunched and leaning heavily on her cane before him.

He directed his full attention to her. "Yes?" he asked gently. "What is it?"

She stood before him, looking down at the floor. The quiet silo was vacant of no one but the two of them as she finally gathered the courage to ask, "Optimus . . . You wouldn't ever hurt me like Megatron did . . . would you?"

Optimus felt his spark bleed at her timid question. He knelt down so his height wouldn't intimidate her, saying softly, "Nightstalker, I would NEVER do what Megatron did. I would sooner tear out my own optics than hurt you."

She released a tight breath, and her tense wings drooped. "Thanks," she whispered. "I—I needed to hear that."

When she failed to say anything more though stayed as if going to say something, Optimus prodded gently with, "Nightstalker? What is it?"

After a moment more, she lifted her head and looked him in the optics. "Optimus," she said seriously, "I don't want my last time to be with Megatron, after what he did to me . . . I want to overwrite that. I—Will you interface with me?"

Optimus's optics popped. She . . . His spark thundered in his chassis, and immediately desire began to chase through his systems again, aroused at the mere thought of interfacing with her.

Still, as he looked at her cowering so in front of him, still scared, still lusty, still trusting, he felt his spark seize in pain. Primus, he couldn't . . . She was so breakable it broke his spark into shattered pieces.

_What are you waiting for?_ he felt Orion demand restlessly. _She's offering herself to you! Take her! This is what we wanted, isn't it? Take her, by Primus, teach her that interfacing doesn't have to be like that!_

Optimus slowly shook his head to himself. No. I will not.

Orion sputtered helplessly. _But—the Matrix can come later, she—_

Look at her! This is—do not tell me you can look into those optics and take her body when her spark is somewhere else.

Orion fell silent at that accusation, and Optimus's optics fell away from Nightstalker's painfully desperate optics. He trembled, so ashamed and so full of compassion that his spark hurt.

I will not take her. So what if I am alone for the duration of my life, I do not care. But this . . . I could not live with myself if I took her now.

_But she . . . I thought . . ._

Optimus shook his head at himself again. No. You thought many things, but this is wrong, and I will not do it.

Reaching out, Optimus brought Nightstalker into a hug, holding her shaking body close. When her hands tried to touch him, he grabbed them, pushing them away. "No, Nightstalker," he said softly.

He felt her body seize. She began to cry softly, so frustrated she didn't know what to do. "Why?" she finally wept pathetically.

His breaking spark slowly burned a hole through his chassis. "It is not my place," he said quietly, reaching a hand to hold behind her tiny helm. His arms tightened on her, and he felt lubricant burning his optics.

_It is not my place. It never was, and never will be. But . . . I understand that. I have hurt her enough. This time, I will make it right._

"Nightstalker," he murmured, "I am sorry I could not be the mech you needed me to be. A proper father figure." He shook his head and pressed a slow breath from his vents.

His words seemed like a cold comfort to her. She only cried harder. "But—what am I supposed to DO? I can't—I can't live with his touch being the only thing I can remember!"

Optimus held her, contemplating her words. Reaching up and kneading the place he had seen Bumblebee do, her shuddering cries slowed to system hiccups as she finally calmed down again.

He paused. "Nightstalker, if you want someone to overwrite Megatron's cruelty . . . I think you should look to . . . Cliffjumper."

She froze. "C-Cliffjumper?"

Optimus nodded. Letting her go so he could look her in the optics, he said quietly, "I think that is exactly the kind of therapy both you and Cliffjumper need. You need someone to teach you that interfacing isn't what you had with Megatron. And, Cliffjumper . . ." Optimus shook his head. "Cliffjumper is horrified at what happened. He blames himself for not being able to help you. If he could overwrite the feeling of what Megatron did to you . . . I think that would finally convince him he could do right by you."

Nightstalker quivered, armor clattering audibly she shook so hard. "B—But . . . What if—What if—But . . ."

Optimus took her twitching hands. "Nightstalker? What is it? Cliffjumper would never hurt you, I promise. There's no need to be afraid. What are you afraid of?"

"I—I—" She struggled for her words, shaking and shaking as hot tears seeped down her cheeks. "Optimus, I—I'm scared! I—I don't know why, or what, what it is, I just—I'm just scared. I'm scared . . ."

His powerful arms enveloped her protectively again, and he rested his chin on the top of her helm. "Nightstalker . . . I promise you, I won't let Megatron touch you ever again. We all hold that same promise in our sparks. And Cliffjumper . . . He is probably afraid to touch you because he thinks you would be afraid of him touching you." The thought was actually quite funny, and it helped quell Nightstalker's crying as she tried to fight it again. Optimus used a thumb to wipe away her tears. "Nightstalker, I promise you can put your faith in Cliffjumper."

Her lips quivered; her jaw tightened. "I can?"

Optimus nodded firmly, clasping her hands in his. "Nightstalker . . . Interfacing can be a beautiful thing if done correctly. And, from what I have seen of Cliffjumper's conduct with those who have been broken . . . He has quite the knack for bringing them back even stronger than before."

Nightstalker's optics misted. She wiped the tears on her shoulder. "Like what he did with Arcee?"

Optimus nodded. "Just like that, only . . . possibly more, this time. I've never seen the mech so infatuated with someone in my life."

Nightstalker looked up at Optimus, amazed at what he had said, and finally, she hugged him tightly, throat lumping with gratefulness. "Thank you, Optimus," she whispered.

He bowed his helm into her, a part of himself healing on the inside. "You are welcome, Nightstalker."

_I must teach myself to let go. Both of Nightstalker . . . and of Megatronus._

They stayed like that for a stretching moment, wrapped in the other's embrace before of unspoken agreement, they let go. Nightstalker wobbled, resetting her footing, and Optimus's hands reached out to steady her.

"Do you need help in going back to Ratchet?"

Nightstalker shook her head. "No . . . I can make it."

Optimus nodded. He stood. "I wish you luck, Nightstalker."

"Thanks."

And, just like that he turned back to the computer and Nightstalker turned to go back down the halls yet again. It seemed to take twice as long to get back to Ratchet, and her stomach seemed to get sicker and sicker the more time it took. By the time she had finally found Ratchet again, her legs were paining her so much her knees almost knocked and her mood had turned most foul.

"Optimus told me to go to Cliffjumper."

Ratchet looked up from his work with wide optics. "He did?" When Nightstalker nodded, Ratchet frowned, a pensive look stealing over him, but then, recognition seemed to dawn in his optics. "Yes, that . . . Of course! I've been blind . . ."

Nightstalker gave a weak, bitter laugh. "Cliffjumper won't do it."

Ratchet looked up in surprise. "What? He said no?"

Nightstalker snorted and shook her head. "No, I didn't even ask him."

"Then how do you know he's going to say no?"

Nightstalker scowled and dropped her head. "Please. Like he wants to touch me after he's seen what a whore I am."

Ratchet's jaw ticked. "Nightstalker, don't say that."

"It's true!" she snapped. "Besides, he saw what a mess Megatron made of me . . ."

Spark paining, Ratchet knelt down next to her, saying, "Nightstalker, trust me when I say that I believe Cliffjumper will not refuse you."

She set her jaw. "He won't. I know it."

"Nightstalker, you have to give him the chance. He's not going to hurt you."

She frowned again and turned her face away. "What if he does say no?" When Ratchet fell silent without an answer, Nightstalker gave a sour laugh and shook her head, looking down at her peds. "That's what I thought. I'll have hit a dead end. I won't have another mech I'd trust enough to—"

She stopped. Her optics locked on Ratchet's knee. Her optics dragged up to his. He leaned back.

"Nightstalker, no—"

"Please, Ratchet!" she burst, jumping forward. When she did so, she very nearly collapsed, only Ratchet's hands on her forearms catching her. "Please, Ratchet, you're all that I have left to—"

"Nightstalker," he said strictly, "No. You need to talk to Cliffjumper—"

"He's just going to say no!" she burst.

"Nightstalker, I—I can't!" Ratchet finally exploded, nearly horrified at what she was asking of him.

A stricken look crossed her features. It took a second for Ratchet to control his expression, but the damage had already been done. Hot tears beaded up in her optics.

"I told you!" she cried out. She tried to twist away from him, but he refused to let go and let her fall. "I'm disgusting! Just a filthy whore, you all look at me like that—!"

"Nightstalker, no!" Ratchet said more firmly. He took her by her shoulders, shaking her out of her hysterical stupor. Ratchet almost swore to himself, promising himself that if her bi-polar tendencies got any worse than this he would root around in her processor and remove the chip himself. "It's not like that, I swear upon the All Spark, you are NOT a whore."

"Then please!" She suddenly flung herself forward, wrapping her arms around his waist. Ratchet froze as she buried her face into his stomach. "Please Ratchet, I'm begging you, just one interface! I don't care how you do it, just please, I NEED to feel it again—feel it and feel it good, I don't want Megatron's touch to be the last thing I ever felt—_please!"_

Conflicted, impassioned tears beaded in his optics. With a shaking hand and a sharp hissing vent, Ratchet reached up his hands to his face, holding back pained sobs as he tried to deal with the matter at hand. He wanted so much to give in to her. As she thought, an interface would be easy. Just one quick one, and he wouldn't be obliged to do it again. It really wasn't that big a deal she was asking, but . . .

His spark wept in agony. He couldn't do it. He could never do it. Not with the way he saw her. And . . . her condition.

"Nightstalker," he finally rasped, "I can't." She broke down into helpless sobs, sinking down to her knees, and Ratchet knelt too, collecting her shaking body into his arms. He pressed her helm to his chassis, trembling as he did so. "I'm sorry, but I can't. Even if it didn't interfere with my own beliefs . . . You can't."

A hiccup stopped her crying and made her look up with morbid confusion. "W . . . what?"

Ratchet's throat tightened as he looked down at her. "N-Nightstalker, you haven't ever let me tell you what was wrong with you." She blinked owlishly at him, his words not quite computing. He took a tense breath. "Nightstalker . . . Megatron's rape did more than you think it did. It . . . did catastrophic damage to your valve, and . . ." He sucked in, letting it out slowly. He looked away, unable to look her in the optics. "Nightstalker . . . Your neural network was ravaged. Utterly. You won't ever be able to feel anything in your valve again."

She deflated. She stared in complete horror, and then, her helm dropped, and she leaned wordlessly against his leg.

"Nightstalker?"

She didn't respond. She leaned slack against his leg, and Ratchet had to leave it that way, letting her lean against him as she sorted out her thoughts. He began to do another inspection on their remaining supplies, but his mind was divided now. He couldn't focus. He would simply have to do it all over again.

He heard a faint click. He knew she was opening her valve, was touching herself. A faint few seconds later, and the click sounded again. A moment later, soft crying.

His spark melted. Unable to take the quiet sounds of her misery any longer, Ratchet bent down and picked her up, letting her legs wrap around his waist and her arms around his neck. He pressed his face into her neck cables, shuddering in a breath to stifle his own tears that wanted to flow.

"I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry, Nightstalker, I'm so sorry . . ."

She wouldn't stop crying. No matter what whimsical things he whispered into her audio receptors, no matter what comforting things he said, it seemed everything Megatron had done to her, her family dilemma, and her inability to handle it all had finally culminated and broke her. Ratchet trembled as he held her.

"Nightstalker," he finally rasped. His thumb stroked soothingly over her shoulder. "Nightstalker, I . . . the real reason I can't bring you to overload . . . I can't because I—every time I look at you I see . . . a little sparkling." Her crying tightened with clear indication that she was trying to fight it back. Ratchet held her tighter. "I—I'm not very good with words when it comes to affectionate things, but, I just want to let you know that—and I may overstep my boundaries, tell me if I do, but I just . . . Every time I look at you, I see you as MY sparkling. My daughter. Because I . . . I love you."

Her sobbing quieted to irregular hiccups, and she lifted her head, tear-stained face blinking openly at him. After her system gave several more hiccups, she finally whispered, "R-Really?"

Ratchet nodded.

Her lips quivered. She pressed them together tighter, but the tears began to roll from her optics again. "Y-You really mean that?" she whispered. "I mean, you really see me . . . like a daughter? You—You love me?"

Unable to speak around the emotion in his throat, Ratchet nodded.

Her body began to seize with unshed tears. She bit her lip hard, trying to see him through the film of wet tears. "I . . . I didn't think . . . after what Megatron did, that—"

"That anyone could love you?" Ratchet cut in suddenly. He took a shaky breath, pressing his helm to hers. "Don't you EVER say that. You are worthy of love, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Nightstalker nodded. She wiped her tears only for them to be replaced with new ones. "Ratchet . . . D-Does that mean . . ." Her spark hurt so much it was so hopeful with dread. She didn't want to be let down, but she had to know, had to hear it for herself . . . "Does that mean I can look at you like a father to me?" she rasped.

Ratchet nodded.

And in that one magic moment, her world was turned upside down.

_A father._

Her body seized as she tried to stop the tears.

_No—my father._

_ MY father._

_ My FATHER._

Around her quivering lips, Nightstalker finally managed a weak, "I love you too!" before her voice broke and she collapsed into tears again. She clung to Ratchet, and he clutched her tightly. Sheer passion brought him to his knees, and he rocked Nightstalker like a sparkling, spark bleeding for her transgressions.

_I'll protect you. I'll be there for you. I love you, and I promise I will NEVER abandon you. I will take care of you, support you, and love you more than your biological father ever will._

_ He will fade; I will replace him._

_ And you'll never feel that loneliness ever again._

_ This I promise._


	46. Perfect Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

**Did a time jump in this chapter because I did NOT want to go through all the boring fluffies and boring parts (like... legit filler chapters that would have drove me NUTS) so I hurried it up since the season finale is coming up in about... 4 more episodes? 5 more? Yeah. I skipped about two episodes in here and a couple weeks.**

**Song: _Perfect Nightmare__Shontelle**

* * *

><p>After another checkup with Ratchet, Nightstalker sat on the edge of her medical berth, swinging her legs with anxious boredom. She wanted to fly. It had been a while since she had done so, and the familiar feeling of the room getting smaller and smaller was starting to ache in her back strut.<p>

Still, she wasn't cleared for flying—for transforming. Ratchet didn't want to risk her inflaming her motor lines again, and he didn't believe she had the strength for a flight yet. Which, it was probably true, but it didn't help with the pressing fact that she WANTED TO FLY.

So, she sat. She was exhausted from her physical therapy already, the kids were in school, and the rest of the bots were out on patrol. That left Ratchet and his mound of work he did around the silo, and Optimus on the computers decoding the Iacon database. She was BORED. And the want for flight was aching. She tapped her toes more, fanning her wings. The bots should be back from their routine patrols, though. She could wait until then, right?

"Optimus, I'm ready for a bridge."

Nightstalker jumped and cursed softly at Cliffjumper's voice. First: he scared her. Second: she didn't want to talk to him. They were avoiding each other for a reason, and neither was comfortable with even looking at each other.

The bridge opened. The bridge closed. Nightstalker kept tapping her toes. She stared at the floor. Footsteps. Her spark stilled. They stopped in front of her. A pause. He cleared his throat. She heard his intakes seize. A long silence. He walked away.

Nightstalker's wings dipped. At this moment, she wasn't sure if she was relived or hurt that he didn't speak to her. Maybe it was for the better. What could he say anyways? "Sorry I watched you get raped," and they'd move on? There wasn't anything meaningful, and Nightstalker would die if he told her how disgusting she was. Primus, she couldn't even ask him for the interface, much less even look him in the optic!

"Wait, Nightstalker!"

He ran back and stumbled to a halt in front of her, breathing hard like he had run a marathon. Nightstalker looked up with wide optics, and she witnessed his throat work hard, and he turned away, servos clenching into fists. After several seconds he looked back, and for a long moment, he just looked at her. Finally, his tight fists slacked.

"May I sit with you?"

Nightstalker just barely contained her jaw from dropping and instead gave a little nod.

"Thanks."

Nightstalker waited for him to speak, but . . . he never did. He didn't say anything good, anything bad, anything mean, anything sad, just . . . nothing. She shifted, tapping a finger as she tapped her toes. Her wings fluttered. She wasn't used to Cliffjumper not talking. It . . .

Bothered her.

"Can you say something?" she finally asked quietly.

He shifted. After a moment, he cleared his throat nervously, muttering, "I, ah . . . don't know what to say."

"Then—"

"No, no," he interrupted, "I . . . I know what I want to say, I'm just . . . I don't know if I can."

They didn't look at each other. They stared at the floor. After another moment of silence that seemed to creep on Nightstalker's metal, she finally murmured, "Cliffjumper . . . talk. I want to hear you talk."

He gave a weak laugh. "About what?"

"Anything," Nightstalker said. She rubbed her feet together nervously. "I just . . . want to hear your voice."

She missed him talking about nothing. That was what it was. She missed hearing his voice. She hadn't realized how much she had appreciated it until it was suddenly gone, and now that she had gotten a taste of it, she just wanted him to keep talking. It didn't matter about what, just . . . the warmth of that deep voice.

"My voice," he finally said. He seemed to struggle, unable to find his words now that they mattered the most. His hands tightened on the berth. "Um . . . I, ah . . . Nightstalker . . ." With a last shuddering breath, he finally managed in a rasp, "Can I hold your hand?"

Nightstalker paused. Her optics flickered to her hand nearest to him and to the floor. "Um . . . Okay."

Again, that halting unfamiliarity, as if he wasn't sure how to be around her anymore. Had the rape really changed things that much? But then, his hand slowly reached over.

Shaking.

Warmth covered her hand. The tension suddenly drained from Nightstalker, and her wings drooped as he settled his hand comfortably over hers. "Thanks," Cliffjumper whispered to her.

There was a pause in which Nightstalker wasn't sure how to fill in the gap of silence, but then, she heard it. Quiet crying. Felt it. Quiet shaking. Finally, he whispered thickly, "Nightstalker . . . I'm sorry." His hand tightened. He could barely veil his crying, soft sobs slipping forth. "I'm sorry, oh Primus, Nights, I'm so sorry . . ."

There were those words again. Nightstalker wasn't sure if she wanted to keep hearing them, but . . . Cliffjumper hadn't had the chance to say them. "It's not your fault."

"I should have done something!" he snapped roughly. He dropped his head, clenching his jaw and trembling in anger. "I don't care what would have happened, I should have DONE something." The hand tightened to almost crushing. "I don't care if I would have died, I shouldn't have let him do that to you. I should have done something, tried to stop him, I shouldn't have let him walk all over you like that."

Nightstalker just shook her head, staring guiltily down at her toes. "Cliffjumper, you would have just got shot and died."

"Well I would die for you!" he said roughly. He took a moment to breathe sharply and control his raging emotions before his impassioned voice rasped, "I would die for you. You hear me, Nights? I'm not going to let him do any harm to you ever again. And I'm not going to let him get away with this."

Nightstalker bit her lip sharply. "Cliff . . . I don't want you dying for me. Okay?"

"Not if Megatron's going to hurt you again."

"I don't care," she hissed at him. It was her turn for her hand to clench up. "A rape isn't worth you throwing your life away for. I'm glad you didn't—"

"Nightstalker, I would die a thousand times to protect you from that rape! Don't think so little of yourself that you don't care about how he—he—" Cliffjumper choked off, and he turned away again, fighting his embroiled emotions.

A prickle of fear chased up Nightstalker's back struts in remembrance, but she shook it off, focusing on the feel of Cliffjumper's hand covering hers. Megatron's touch ebbed away. "Cliffjumper . . ."

"Yeah?"

Nightstalker took a deep breath. "What's going on between you and Arcee?"

He shook his head, still looking at the floor with her. "Not much. I mean—It's broken off. It's been that way for a while. We . . . had a good long while now to talk things out. I mean, it's not a bad thing, Arcee's fine with it now, and it's weird because I almost think she really really wants me to be with you now considering what Megatron did, and—" Cliffjumper suddenly cut off with a wince. "Sorry. I'm rambling again."

Nightstalker gave a little shrug, focusing on her tapping toes. "It's all right. I like it."

A weak laugh spilled from Cliffjumper. "Yeah? Haven't heard that one before."

After a moment, Nightstalker flipped her hand around so she could lace her fingers with his. "Cliffjumper?"

An uneven breath shuddered in and out of him. "Yeah?"

Her throat worked. "Am I disgusting?"

Cliffjumper visibly jolted. For the first time, he looked at her dead on. "No! No, who told you—No, Nights, don't you ever listen to what scrap Megatron told you, you are NOT disgusting! You're not! I—I—" He stuttered to a halt, hand tightening its hold on hers.

She dropped her helm, hiding the tears that wanted to rise up. "So . . . if I asked you to . . ." Cliffjumper waited in the silence, but the words choked. Nightstalker shook her head. "If I . . . Would you . . . You said that you were going to kiss me a lot more. Are you still . . . willing to . . ."

The silence settled heavily between them. After a moment, he finally rumbled, "Nights . . . Look at me."

It took a greater deal of effort than she had anticipated to look up at him, but once she did, their optics locked and fused. Her spark flipped when he slowly, gently, deliberately brought her hand up with enough time for her to pull away if she so chose. Then, softly, he pressed his lips to the back of her hand.

"I said so," he murmured. He kept his optics fixated on hers. "Now, I promise you. I will keep kissing you as long as you allow it."

Nightstalker's spark flipped in its spark casing again, and little whispers of pleasure ghosted up her arm from the point of contact with his lips. He finally pulled away, and Nightstalker nodded, dropping her head back down.

Both mech and femme jumped when the computer beeped at them. Optimus, on the other side of the base, picked up the call, and his deep voice rumbled across the room. "Agent Fowler."

"Your package is headed in," they heard Fowler say. "Got it custom built in record time. The boys bringing it in are good men. They've got my clearance, so there's no need to worry."

Cliffjumper shifted next to her as Optimus said, "Thank you, Agent Fowler."

"It'll be there in about half an hour. Try not to scare the guys, will ya?"

A faint rumble of laughter. "Of course."

The conversation ended. Nightstalker and Cliffjumper shifted next to each other, Cliffjumper because he was uncomfortable and Nightstalker because she sensed that he knew something she didn't. Before she could ask him, he suddenly spoke up in a nervous spill.

"It's a pole. I mean, I told Optimus about your pole dancing, I'm sorry if you didn't want me to, but you just look different up there, you know? I mean, you look good. I mean—! Frag. I mean that you look how you do when you fly. Free. Happy. So I mean, I took some liberties in having Optimus have Fowler get you one since you opened up so much on it, and I thought it might help you get stronger quicker. I mean, since it clearly takes a lot of strength and skill and balance and stuff, but I mean . . . Oh Primus, Nights, you were beautiful up there."

His voice ended on a mortified yet reverent whisper, and his hand tightened on hers again. After a moment in which Nightstalker was too stunned to get her vocals to work, she finally managed,

"Thanks."

* * *

><p>For some reason, having the pole changed everything.<p>

The day it had come in, the day she had finally talked to Cliffjumper, she had just stared at it for so long where it had been installed in the back. The juxtaposition of emotions it held confused her and made her hesitate. She wanted to dance on it. She REALLY wanted to dance on it since Cliffjumper had such confidence in her. But it reminded her of Megatron, and she got prickly chills by just being around it.

In the end, however, Nightstalker danced on it.

Granted, that first week had been spent just working hard at improving her strength and flexibility as she knew how tough she would have to be to get up on that pole again. The humans were also very sweet with their encouragement. They each created a cd for her, Miko's full of angry speed metal, Raf's with a sort of electronic alternative sort of sound, and Jack with a combination of classical rock, powerful soundtracks, and a rap song peppered here and there. Interesting sorts of music, Jack listened to. But the last cd she received was clearly a collective effort of all. It came with a note attached, saying only, "For confidence," and then, in a scrawl that was clearly Miko's, "And to kick ass and feel sexy again."

Nightstalker could only laugh at that.

In reality though, she enjoyed the cds very much, the latter of them having empowering music like "Stronger" by both Britney Spears and Kelly Clarkson; "Headstrong" by Trapt; "Dirty" by Christina Aguilera that made her want to feel sexy; "Baby Don't Cry" by Tupac that tore her soul out; they even had her most favorite, "Dream On" by Aerosmith on there.

What killed her, though, was when she saw the very last song listed on the cd:

"Off With Your Head" by Mz Ann Thropik.

She could practically feel Cliffjumper's optics welded to her at just the thought of the song. It haunted her, the sultry guitar and the dissonant piano cords and heavy bass that rattled her chassis. With Cliffjumper it was a constant war with herself. All she could think of was that look in his optics when she had looked down on him, that magic, seductive moment where she thought he had looked all the way into her soul and could ravish her without even touching her. It scared her to think of it, to give him such power, but by Primus did she want to give him. She wanted to allow him complete domination over her, and it terrified her after what complete domination had done to her before—raped her within an inch of her life. She couldn't dare it, and so she never touched the cd out of fear of one song.

During this time, the bots were very busy. Smokescreen took Jack out on a foolhardy mission that ended up a huge success as Optimus gained the Star Saber. And then, the devastation when Megatron came back with the Dark Star Saber and shattered the magnificent blade like glass. Through it all, they could only be thankful that Smokescreen managed to save an Omega Key. That was HUGE—collecting these keys that were supposed to revive Cybertron.

And, through it all, Cliffjumper continued to place kisses on her. Be they on her hand, on her cheek, the back of her helm, her toes, her knee, he kissed her, but never ever on the lips. She wasn't sure what to think of it, but he was still kissing her. Did he not want to kiss her after Megatron had done so? The thought made her sick. So instead of thinking about it, she continued practicing on the pole, dancing away her problems and thoughts and the urge to fly that was slowly killing her from the inside out.

Thus it was that Smokescreen really wanted to see Nightstalker do this pole dancing.

At first, Nightstalker had been uncertain, and Ratchet had literally flown off the handle at Smokescreen for even suggesting it. But then, the more Nightstalker thought about it, the more she wanted to do it. She wanted to prove to them that she wasn't weak. She wanted to show them that she could do something right and that pole dancing, as arbitrary as it seemed, was not the horrible slut-stereotyped thing it was made out to be. It could be an art, and she wanted to make it an art for them.

So she was going to pole dance for the team.

It sounded weird, it felt weird, but in her spark it felt right. She needed to do it for the sake of her own sanity, as weird as that sounded, so she picked up the cd the kids had put together for her, her support cd, and she found a song. One song that really messed with her spark because it made her realize that going back to Megatron had been the dumbest thing she had ever done, and that she knew better. It sang to her why she had always gone back, even though she knew it was wrong, but it also sang to her that she would never go back. This would be her last dance to Megatron, a dance to finally free herself from all he had done to her.

"What do you mean we can't watch!"

Nightstalker winced slightly at Miko's loud, accusing voice, but she merely gave a small smile to the humans. "I'm sorry," she said again, "but I really don't think you guys need to be watching yet. Maybe in a few years."

Miko groaned in frustration. "But I thought you said it wasn't that provocative!"

Nightstalker gave a little sigh, cocking her head. "Miko, I highly doubt your parents would approve."

The young human frowned and crossed her arms. "Well . . . They wouldn't have to know!"

Jack grabbed her arm. "Look, Miko, just let it go. If she doesn't want us to watch, we're not going to."

Miko sputtered. "You're—but that's—AUGH!"

Miko stomped off angrily that she was going to miss it, but Jack just gave a shrug and a smile. Raf smile too, giving her a thumbs up and saying, "Good luck!"

"Break a leg," Jack echoed.

Nightstalker smiled and thanked them both before heading into the back with the rest of the bots. Smokescreen was excited—he kept jittering back and forth from one leg to the other. Optimus, Arcee, and Cliffjumper were passive. Bulkhead seemed a little nervous, and Ratchet all around didn't like the idea of it, not only because the others would be watching but also because he didn't like the idea of pole dancing in the first place.

Bumblebee's wings perked up when she walked in. *What song is it?* he chirped.

Nightstalker stood to the side. "The first one." She began to remove armor, but she kept on the extremities that covered her diamond zone. Then, she went and stood in front of the pole, leaning her helm against it. "Go ahead and start it."

*Okay!*

The piano started in immediately, and it wasn't until Shontelle's voice started singing that Nightstalker began to move.

_Sometimes we fight, sometimes I cry  
>Why don't I just tell him goodbye<br>Sometimes I should, but sometimes I don't  
>Build up the strength to say that it's wrong<em>

They were easy moves right now—she wasn't even on the pole, just dancing around it, little kicks and a cartwheel here and there, a sort of modern style jazz that moved her body as the words poured out of her spark.

_Sometimes I hate, sometimes I love  
>Sometimes I hurt, sometimes I don't<br>Sometimes I wait for him to change  
>But it's okay, I've disguised the pain<em>

Nightstalker bent backwards until her hands touched the ground, and she flipped into a handstand, stretching her legs up, open, closed, open the other way, close, kick back, straighten and hold. They were easy moves, just filling the time until the first chorus when things sped up. She needed to conserve her energy.

_And I don't ever wanna leave him alone  
>They say I'm brainwashed but I'm in love with this man<em>

She rested a hand on the pole, and she walked around it, throwing her head around as she felt the words sink in her spark. It was exactly the kind of relationship she had with him, and she hated it. And the fact that she was scared if he offered her an apology that for some Primus-forsaken reason she would want to go back to him and trust that that was the good hidden deep inside. She couldn't believe that—there WAS no good left in him.

_Keep telling myself that it's not worth it  
>I already know I don't deserve it<br>But if it's from you I don't mind hurting  
><em>

Nightstalker then grasped the pole with both hands, and she lifted her feet of the ground, twirling once, twice, and then she brought up her knees and grasped the pole, pulling herself up. She arched her back until she was in a backbend, let go of one hand to touch her neck, and extended one leg straight up so she was in a split and her toes pointed both to the ceiling and to the floor. Smokescreen let out a hoot of encouragement, and as he did, Ratchet suddenly got more worried.

She barely heard the medic as he called out, "Now, Nightstalker, you be careful! If you fall and hurt yourself I'm not fixing anything broken!"

Nightstalker ignored him, pulling herself up a little more on the pole as her spark writhed in remembrance of what Megatron had put her through.

_This is my perfect nightmare  
>So when will I wake up and scream—<em>

Then, with a grit of her teeth and a slight, angry curl of her lips, Nightstalker threw herself into a complicated series of spins.

_NO WAY, NO WAY, NO WAY, NO WAY_

_NO WAY, NO WAY, NO WAY_

She pulled her legs up with her hands clinging to the pole, flipping upside down and spreading both legs while spinning. She then twisted, closed her legs and stretched out, using her thighs now to spin on the pole as she spread her legs in a split parallel with the floor. She turned again, curling in on herself and brought both legs in, spinning faster and faster, and she uncurled, extending so one hand was holding her feet and pulling her faster and her other hand sliding up her neck. Faster and faster—

_But if it's from you I don't mind hurting  
>This is my perfect nightmare, perfect nightmare<em>

Her stomach plates curled and strained as she sat up, extended her legs and twirled with what looked like effortless skill, and she locked one knee around the pole, stretched the other down and spun, the world a blur to her optics as she shook off Megatron's grip on her. She was faintly aware of Bumblebee calling out supportive things, Smokescreen hooting and hollering as her own personal cheer group, and she could practically feel the strain from Ratchet as he watched her contort into pretzel positions at precarious heights with the threat to fall and break something at any second, but they faded from her mind. Megatron would haunt her no longer.

_Sometimes I keep my cool, sometimes I let him know  
>Sometimes I even pack my bags to walk out the door<br>Sometimes I feel safe, sometimes I really don't  
>Sometimes I promise that I'm ready to let him go<br>But I don't ever wanna leave him alone  
>They say I'm brainwashed but I'm in love with this man<em>

She stretched separate legs to the ceiling and the floor bent upside down in a split as she spun on the pole, and with no small amount of strain, leaned her split away from the pole for several seconds in an overextended twirl. Then, she brought herself in close, switching positions fluently and quickly, one after the other, swinging her legs, snapping her hands and locking her body into different positions.

_Keep telling myself that it's not worth it  
>I already know I don't deserve it<br>But if it's from you I don't mind hurting_

Nightstalker, halfway down the pole, kicked her legs into a split and did a mock fall to which Ratchet literally jumped, but she landed on the ground in her split without hurting herself. Bulkhead, however, flinched. Twisting around and curling from the floor up, Nightstalker allowed her body a small break in between to rest as she spun a couple times, using the pole as leverage as she locked an ankle behind it and swirled around like a twister of fluent water, neither breaking her graceful strides nor stutter stepping.

_This is my perfect nightmare  
>So when will I wake up and scream<em>

It was a perfect nightmare. Everything she had with Megatron. What she thought a dream, the horrible façade of a nightmare and a life wasted. But not anymore. She wouldn't fall for his tricks again, and she would live her own life! She wouldn't ever let him touch her again!

_NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY!_

_NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY!_

In probably the most passionate frenzy of the song, Nightstalker shook her head, whipped it back and forth as the words reverberated in her spark, grasped her helm, tossed it back and forth, and fell with a slam to her knees, still lashing her helm back and forth almost violently before falling dramatically on her back in defeat. Then, she rose up.

_But if it's from you I don't mind hurting_

As she slowly, seductively sat up, knees and chest leading as one hand held her neck and the other slid down her stomach, her optics locked with Cliffjumper's. Her in takes seized, the turbulent passion that raged inside him both scaring her and inciting her; it seemed to swallow her and smother her in the room.

_This is my perfect nightmare, perfect nightmare_

She couldn't break the optic contact with him. Something about the sheer ardor that burned there was magnetic, and she forgot the others in the room as her spark fluttered nervously. Cliffjumper didn't blink, didn't move, seemed petrified in stone, but with the way his optics danced slightly, she knew there was a connection more than just a few kisses.

_Hoping he's changing, but I'm scared he's not  
>Can't see a way to leave, help me open my eyes<em>

The bridge of the song opened up, and Nightstalker faltered in her dance, managing to turn over, hands and knees, but she couldn't look away from Cliffjumper with that possession and the affection that touched the borderline of being complete arousal at the erotic dance she presented him. She arched like a cat, and his optics drew over her curves momentarily before that insatiable heat in his optics burned through her again. Her spark tripped; _help me open my eyes._ For the first time in her life, Nightstalker thought she was actually seeing truth instead of lies.

_Keep telling myself that it's not worth it  
>I already know I don't deserve it<br>But if it's from you I don't mind hurting  
>This is my perfect nightmare, perfect<em>

As Nightstalker numbly moved her body back to the pole, as she climbed up high again, she realized what she had been missing the entire time she had danced. She wasn't dancing for Megatron. She had never been dancing for Megatron. She wasn't even dancing for Smokescreen because he had asked her. As she flipped upside down again, back resting against the pole, she looked down at Cliffjumper again. Her hands tightened, and she flexed her legs, bending them so far back in a backbend that they touched the tips of her wings. She witnessed his throat bob, and his mouth parted with a needy breath.

Her entire body was tense with the rigor of holding the pose, but she held it a mite longer than she had meant to, intoxicated by the lost, seduced, and near desperation those optics held. Finally, because of her body, Nightstalker had to let go of the pose and flip straight up again, muscles screaming at the abuse.

_Keep telling myself that it's not worth it  
>I already know I don't deserve it<br>But if it's from you I don't mind hurting  
>This is my perfect nightmare<br>So when will I wake up and scream_

Nightstalker locked a leg around the pole, fell back to an upside down point of view, a hand gripping upwards for support and the other grabbing downwards above her head, and her free leg stretched out and down in a pose as she twirled several times, body fluent and never pausing or ceasing. Heat filled her body as she spun around the pole, contorting and flexing with the grace and strength of an acrobat.

_NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY!_

_NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY!_

She twisted upwards, locking her ankle around the pole and kicking up her other leg, and she grabbed it midair, taking it around and pulling up behind her head, a scorpion that stretched her body to its limits as she spun to the beat of the music.

_But if it's from you I don't mind hurting  
>This is my perfect nightmare, perfect nightmare<em>

Her body flowed like liquid, surreal and twisting and contorting, and her body undulated towards the pole before she lied out straight, completely parallel with the floor and perpendicular with the pole. Her body strained to hold it straight, but she succeeded.

_NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY!_

_NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY!_

She swiveled her body around once, flipping her legs wide and turning before she pointed both legs up diagonally and leaned back into a backbend, upside down and arms outstretched as she slowly let herself sink to the floor. Her head touched gently first before she allowed her weight to rest on her shoulders, and as she did so, her optics locked with Cliffjumper's again. Smothered fires crackled between them.

_But if it's from you I don't mind hurting  
>This is my perfect nightmare, perfect nightmare<br>_

She opened up her legs, letting them slowly rotate down so she had both feet on the floor. Then, she flipped her upper body up and buckled her knees, overturning herself so that her knees ended up pointed towards the pole, belly up, and her head arched backwards towards her audience as she looked back at them.

_Perfect nightmare._

There was a long beat of silence in which Nightstalker could only stare at Cliffjumper and those optics that blazed fierce with passion, spark in her throat, one hand flat on the floor and the other against her neck. His throat worked again; his fingers twitched; no one dared say anything, seeing the change through the second half of the dance to where Nightstalker had danced only for Cliffjumper.

Until Smokescreen broke the perpetual moment with a well placed howl of excitement.

"Oh man, Nights, that was SICK!"

Amused at his human slang, Nightstalker finally broke her optic contact with Cliffjumper and sat upright, standing up as she felt the strains in her protoform from the dance that had probably been too much for her recovering body. But with the ecstatic look on Smokescreen's face, she deemed it worth it.

She smiled nervously. "It was?"

"Yeah!" Smokescreen exclaimed enthusiastically. He grinned, brushing past her to the pole. "You've gotta teach me how to do that!"

Nightstalker rolled her optics as Smokescreen tried to do one of the basic twirls, but he simply slipped down and fell, metal scraping on metal. He was acting silly, but she knew it was for her benefit to make her feel at ease. She appreciated him, honestly, even if he DID get on her nerves sometimes. "Newsflash," she said cheekily, "you can't do it in armor."

All the air gushed from her when Bumblebee picked her up with a happy whirl, buzzing, *Nights, that was really cool! I didn't know you could do all of that!*

She began to relax some now, realizing that they weren't judging her negatively for the pole dancing—even Arcee looked begrudgingly impressed. "You really think so?"

"Nights, that was totally wicked!"

A groan interrupted them, and Nightstalker's optics popped when she saw Miko—of course, she shouldn't be surprised—with a sheepish Jack and a blushing Raf trailing behind her. She planted herself in front of her, grinning up. "Nightstalker, was awesome! I mean, I thought pole dancing was just for sluts, but it was really cool! It looked so hard."

"What Miko means," Jack interrupted with a sharp elbow to her ribs; Miko yelped, rubbing her side with narrowed eyes at the boy who was trying to hide her poor choice of words, "What Miko means is that that was really impressive, Nightstalker. I mean—I'm absolutely certain none of us could do it."

Raf, in all his cuteness as he tried to wrap his mind around it, could only say, "I didn't know Cybertronians were as flexible as humans."

Nightstalker knelt to them with a smile, curling her fingers around Raf, and Bulkhead's booming laughter filled the room. "Nights, you're so flexible it's PAINFUL. If I had a little of that, I'd be a happy mech!"

Nightstalker grinned as Ratchet muttered under his breath, unwillingly expressing his bedazzled response with the grumble that he still didn't like it. Optimus looked down at his grumpy medic fondly before he nodded, saying, "I am very impressed, Nightstalker. You've shown us that you are a femme of many talents, and one with ample flexibility, strength, and grace."

Miko waved her hands, fixing Nightstalker with a serious look. "Beside the point—that. Was. Awesome."

Bumblebee tinkled a fun laugh. *You can say that again!*

"That was AWESOME!" Smokescreen shouted, still trying to figured out how to do what Nightstalker had done previously. That made a round of warm laughter pass through the bots, and Nightstalker turned, looking and listening for the one voice she wanted to hear . . .

And he wasn't there.

Nightstalker frowned, standing and looking for Cliffjumper. "Hold on, you guys," she muttered absently, brows cinching. "I'll be right back."

She took off out of the room, Bumblebee's call of, *Wait! You're armor!* drifting behind her as she left the room and into the halls. She looked left and right, didn't see him either way, and moved on, going towards his berth room, assuming that that was where he would be. Her processor moved her legs without much consent, without much thought as she tried to find him, but she didn't have to look long—she turned around the next corner and found him, hands and forehead pressed to the wall as he shuddered in tense breaths. Hearing her footsteps, he jerked and stood straight, luminous optics dancing as they drew down her half-armored form.

". . . Nights?"

She opened her mouth to respond, and then closed it. Was did she want? Why did she follow him? She didn't know. She just stared, throat working a little as his optics undressed her with a look before he blinked hard and shook his head. His throat bobbed as he expelled another controlling breath, slacked his tense hands, and opened his optics to look at her again.

"Nightstalker . . ."

He paused, turning away and shaking his head again. Finally, he turned back, and he stepped towards her, coming to stand right in front of her. Her wings fluttered.

"I'm going to kiss you," he told her. He hadn't even touched her, but she could feel a worm of unrest curling around in her stomach plates. Kiss her when he seemed like he was on the very precipice of his control? He seemed to realize it too, catching on by her stiff posture and fanning wings. "Trust me. Wait—that came out wrong, I'm sorry. Will you LET me kiss you?"

Numbly, Nightstalker found herself nodding.

A sharp intake seized, and Cliffjumper wet his lips, hands shaking both in fear and desire. His unsteady hand brushed her cheek, and Nightstalker shivered. "Trust me," he instinctively rasped, so worried he almost didn't trust himself. With a quick breath to steady himself, Cliffjumper leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.

The feel was different than it was in the cave. Nightstalker stiffened feeling that edge of passion that made him kiss harder than he had before and his fingers to grip her face tighter than he had last time.

_This is Cliffjumper, this is Cliffjumper, this is Cliffjumper . . ._

She kept telling herself that, a desperate repeat in the back of her mind as she let him kiss her so ardently. He parted her mouth open, a ragged gasp catching as he swiftly slid their glossia against each other before he withdrew his glossia, the pressure of their lips intoxicating.

Still, as he kissed her almost without restraints, a cold panic began to settle in her stomach and slice the heat to ribbons. For one paranoid second, all she could think was, _He's smothering me, he's smothering me! _and then, it didn't matter who was kissing her. Her processor fritzed—he was still kissing her, he couldn't stop, he was going to rape her.

But as her mind started to snowball back in that direction and she started to lift her hands to push and attack him, he broke their kiss apart with a thin gasp. He pressed their cheeks together, trembling as much as she did, and he bowed his helm, hand loosening and cupping her cheek gently. Nightstalker tried to control her shaking. Then, with a heavy breath, he dropped his hand and leaned back, releasing her.

He closed his optics and gave a weighty sigh. "I can stop," he said softly. His optics opened, and the fear shadowed in the back of his optics seemed to fade. Their optics locked, and he nodded to her. "Thanks," he rasped. "I . . . I'm going to go for a drive. Blow off some steam."

Again, Nightstalker nodded numbly. He hesitated like he wanted to say something else before he turned and hurried out of the silo. Nightstalker watched him go, and she pressed her fingers to her used lips.

_He kissed me like that . . . and I LIKED it._

It was as if she had a sort of epiphany. She stood there, trembling in fear and excitement, amazed at herself like she had thought that she would never enjoy passion again after Megatron. Like this, she happily found herself proved wrong.

*Nights?*

She jumped, not expecting Bumblebee's voice, but she whirled around to him where his optics were dilated a little in worry. *You all right?*

She softened with a smile. She hugged him tightly, and he returned that hug with no reservations as she murmured, "Actually . . . I think I will be."


	47. Trust

**Author's Note:**

**This chapter has also been truncated. Basically, it was Nightstalker and Cliffjumper's first interface and the challenges of teaching Nightstalker that she wasn't going to get hurt, hurdling the repercussions of the rape. It was sweet, and I think worth your time. If you want to read the unedited chapter, as always, PM me and I will gladly give you a link. :)**

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><p>So, Arcee and Bumblebee and Cliffjumper all got their tails handed to them by Knockout using sound waves. One Omega Key was theirs, one Omega Key was lost to the 'Cons. Then, in a forest deep in Tennessee, Bulkhead and Smokescreen lost the Omega Key to the 'Cons because while Bulkhead stopped Dreadwing, he obviously had some back up that sucker punched Smokescreen from behind. The rookie was ate up with his first failure, and with both cruel and stern and supportive words (Arcee of the former, Bulkhead of the middle, and Nightstalker being of the latter) he was pulled out of his depressed slump. Not to mention, Bulkhead said he only left Dreadwing alive because he was her step-father. It bothered Bulkhead—that he was the mech that killed Seaspray and the mech that was her step-father. The former Wrecker had a great deal of mixed feelings toward the mech that he didn't know how to sort out.<p>

And then, the real kicker—Smokescreen had the last Omega Key. And, after some very choice words with Arcee, had left and gotten captured by Soundwave.

THAT was just great. Arcee at least had the good decency to look carangid over the fact.

Now they were just waiting, trying to contact Megatron for ransom, trying to pinpoint the location of the _NEMESIS _for a rescue. Nightstalker also missed the kids. Raf most of all, with his cute little glasses that needed the nose pieces tightened, but she missed them collectively. The bots had been so busy they had kinda become lax in taking charge . . . but she guessed it was okay for now. Once the heat over these Omega Keys died down they could all relax again. After all, the stakes were so high it was a wonder they had enough time to rest in between missions!

Thus, what was going on with Nightstalker?

Oh, just an upgrade.

One she wasn't happy about, but was kinda happy about.

"At least you won't have to use this little thing anymore," Cliffjumper said that evening, snatching the baby machine gun from her servos. He twirled it idly and wrinkled his nose at it. "I can't believe you actually used this little toy."

"Well," Nightstalker said, a little affronted at his disregard of her weapon, "shoot yourself in the foot with it and see how much of a toy it is then."

Cliffjumper grinned cheekily and waggled his finger at her. "Now now, Nightstalker, it's not polite to play with other people's toys."

She crossed her arms and hiked up a brow and leaned forward. "Well, I'm giving you permission to play."

"Oh, but I might play a bit more than what you're thinking . . ."

Before she could stop it, Nightstalker blushed and looked away. Primus, slag it all to Pit! Everything he said was processed as a sexual innuendo! She made everything awkward . . . Was she really THAT deprived of an interface that she was this lascivious about everything? She could have smacked herself for being so awful.

Cliffjumper just shifted, getting better at handling her mood swings and kept going to fill the silence. "Anyways," he said, shoving the gun away in their tiny armory and pulling out another, "THIS is what you're going to use!"

Nightstalker blinked at the gun, nearly the same size and shape of her old one, and when Cliffjumper handed it to her with a grin, she found it was actually a little bit lighter, easier to move around.

"It's a little thing put together by Ratchet and me," Cliffjumper said. He came near her to point at it. "See, we both knew you wanted to be more useful, but all I could think of was that dinky little machine gun you use. Well, since you were so used to a machine gun, we designed this one to shoot the same, only this one has lasers, like Arcee's, that way you can hit harder and not run out of bullets! Right?"

Nightstalker turned it over in her hands, duly noting that it even had her color scheme. She bit her lip, smiling softly. "Yeah. Right."

"Right!" Cliffjumper said with a grin. "It's lighter since you're such a teeny little thing, and more compact, that way it'll fit in your back compartment easier. It does, right? Try it."

She was able to lift this new gun with one hand instead of two, and she found it lied neatly between her wings. She grinned, pulling it back out. "Yeah!"

Cliffjumper grinned, pleased that she liked it. "Yeah is right! High five!" Nightstalker smiled shyly and gave him the high five he asked for before he hurried across the room, pushing up the old, used dummy Nightstalker had used to practice on. He gave the thing a pat before backing away. "C'mon, give it a shot! More target practice, eh?" But, he cheekily backed up far until his back was on the far wall, a mock look of terror on his face.

Nightstalker wrinkled her nose and poked out her glossia. "I'm not THAT bad."

"Say that to the last time you shot me."

Nightstalker gaped at him. "That was . . . That was so long ago! I'm better now! And I'll prove it!"

Cliffjumper just gave a warm laugh as she whirled and very carefully took aim at the dummy, and she aimed lower, thinking of how her old gun had reacted, and shot. To her surprise, she completely missed the dummy, her several bullets of laser fire scorching the floor.

Cliffjumper cleared his throat. "Ah . . . There's less kickback now."

Nightstalker screwed up her lips. "Yeah. I figured that out real quick."

Taking aim again, lining up her shot, Nightstalker's wings fanned she was studying her dead foe so hard. Then, with a pull of the trigger, she let off a couple consecutive shots that drilled into the dummy. She gave a cry of triumph.

"Cliffjumper! Cliffjumper, it works!"

He had approached her when she hadn't noticed, and since he was in close range and she was running off a high of success, she threw her arms around him in an enthusiastic hug. Then, before he could even think about wrapping his arms around her, she jumped back, a bright blush staining her cheeks as her jaw gaped a moment.

"I . . . I . . ."

Cliffjumper just gave her an easy smile, waving off her worry. "Easy does it, Nights," he said, tone and words reminiscent of the same mood before their first kiss. "Relax. I'm not going to bite."

Nightstalker bit her lip hard, staring at him. Why couldn't she ask? She been trying for so long now she thought she would never get the words from between her lips. "I—I . . ."

She dipped her head, and Cliffjumper eyed her with wary worry. "Nights?" he asked softly. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Her throat bobbed. Her wings fluttered. She dropped her head. "U-Um . . . it's a . . . lot to ask of you . . ."

A small sigh decompressed from his body. "Nights, whatever it is, I'm sure I can help. Don't be shy."

Her wings fluttered a little more. One servo stole up to hold her elbow. "Um . . . Would you—I mean, I don't want . . . Megatron . . ." She blinked back the tears before looking up at him with clear optics. "Cliffjumper, I don't want my last time to be with Megatron. I want . . . would you . . . interface with me?"

The energon drained from him. His throat tightened.

_Oh Primus . . ._

Instead of vocalizing how scared he had suddenly become, he asked, "Are you sure?"

She nodded vigorously. "Very. I don't want Megatron—I don't want . . ." She trailed off again, orange optics blinking up at him pleadingly.

He felt his spark slowly shatter to pieces at the raw trust she was placing in him. She was scared. It hurt him just to see her so fragile before him. Swallowing his own worry, Cliffjumper knew exactly why she was doing this—exactly why he needed to do this. Exactly why he should . . . and why he wanted to.

"All right," he said softly. He cleared his throat, stopping the rasp. He jerked a thumb vaguely behind him. "Well, uh . . . Um, my berth or yours?"

Nightstalker blinked up in shock. "Y-You mean," she stuttered, "You mean you don't . . . don't find me disgusting?"

Cliffjumper's optics widened in horror. "W-Wha—No! What, are you kidding me? Primus, Nightstalker, don't say that!" He grabbed her servos, hands tightening on hers. "Don't you ever believe for a second anything Megatron told you, hear me? All right?"

Shamefully, Nightstalker began to cry. Cliffjumper hushed her as well as he could, holding her hands close and kissing her fingers as she her systems hiccupped, "I—I thought—I thought you were going to—to think I was just a—"

"Don't even say what you're thinking," Cliffjumper interrupted her softly. He paused a moment, and then, he leaned down, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her bridal style to his recharge room. Nightstalker flailed a moment before settling comfortably into his arms, comforted by the strength they held.

He brought her to his berth room, closing the door behind him, and he sat her quivering body on the edge of his berth before sitting down next to her. He kept one of her hands in his, watching her wings flutter.

"Nightstalker—"

"Okay, I'm really scared and nervous, and you've gotta stop if I say stop, June anything could trigger a relapse of fear, you've gotta stop if I say stop, can you stop? You have to be able to stop."

Cliffjumper waited out her panicked, stumbling words as his thumb slowly soothed over the back of her hand. "Easy does it, Nights," he rumbled. "I can stop. We both know that." Yeah, that was right, she did . . . "And if it gets too much, tell me. We'll stop. If I touch you wrong, tell me. I won't touch you like that again. Anything you don't want me to do, anything you want me to do—tell me. You're calling the shots, all right? You're in charge. I promise."

Nightstalker nodded as certainly as she could. She squeezed his servo tightly. "Thanks," she whispered, feeling a little better about this leap of faith because of his promises. With a deep breath, Nightstalker lied back on the berth. "Okay. Okay . . ." Her jaw tightened as she waited for him to begin, and she squeezed her optics shut, taking even and controlled breaths.

For a second, nothing happened. At first Nightstalker thought he had given up before they even started, but then, she heard him murmur, "Nights . . . Open your optics."

A moment, and she opened them in confusion. His optics were a little sad, but a little of something else affectionate smoldered inside him. "I want you to see," he whispered softly, "that I'm not Megatron." Like that, he lifted the hand he held, kissing her palm and wrist, the very wrist Megatron had broken.

***scene truncated***

Cliffjumper touched a sweet kiss to her lips before bunching her tired body to his chassis, wrapping his powerful arms around her. She snuggled close, sighing in peaceful contentment.

"Thanks," she whispered softly.

His lips brushed tenderly over her helm. "You're welcome," he rumbled back.

Her fingers tightened on his chest as their protoform molded to each other. "Cliffjumper, I . . ." Hot tears beaded again in her optics before she could stop it. She swallowed, fighting them back, not wanting to ruin the moment with more crying. "I've never felt so safe in my entire life."

His strong arms tightened, her safe haven. "I'll never let him hurt you again," he murmured. He pressed his face to hers, spark aching with desperate passions to know she was finally his and no one else's. "I promise, I'll fill every broken part of you. I'll protect you, Nights, I promise . . ."

She cuddled as close as possible, comforted by his promises, liberated by her overload, and protected in his strong embrace. A nameless emotion surged up in her chest, something so strong that she had never felt like before. Cherishing. Sweet. She wanted to tell him how she felt, but she couldn't find the word to place the powerful emotion. Instead, she just sighed, so content she wanted the world to freeze and never ever move again.


	48. Culmination

**Author's Note:**

**Big shout out to ZabuzasGirl who's waited ever so impatiently for this chapter! :D**

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><p>Cliffjumper cleared his throat. "Um, hey Ratchet? I need to . . . talk to you."<p>

The medic looked up from his work, surprised the mech had actually used his designated name. "Was there something you needed?"

Cliffjumper's fingers twitched as he cast a nervous glance across the room, duly noting that they were all far enough away that no one would hear him. They were talking quietly, Smokescreen back in the fold, but as Cliffjumper thought about how Starscream had snatched the Omega Keys away from them with red energon, he shook his head.

"Maybe now's not a good time . . ."

Ratchet reached out, stopping his retreat with an arch of his brows. "Cliffjumper, talk."

The red warrior sighed in frustration, passing a hand over his face as the medic waited for him to spill what was on his processor. Finally, he muttered, "Well, um . . . I need some advice about Nightstalker."

Ratchet shifted. "Yes?"

"Um . . ." He nervously scrubbed his hand over his face again, crossing his arms and looking anywhere but the medic's face. "Well, um . . . You know we interfaced for the first time a couple of days ago. Uh, Nightstalker felt bad that I uh, didn't get to overload, so I started wondering because she just wanted to give me a—Well, I mean, that doesn't really matter, but—! I mean, it took me minute, but I—we realized that Megatron had only, y'know . . . her valve . . . but her—she um—"

Ratchet slowly tired of his embarrassed stuttering. "Cliffjumper, spit it out. I'm sure whatever you tell me I've heard before."

A searing blush touched his features, and he hung his head. "Her aft," he finally mumbled.

At that, Ratchet blinked. He hadn't even THOUGHT about her aft. Beyond the spark, it was another way for her to overload. He nodded, trying to help ease Cliffjumper's nerves some. "Yes, of course. A mutual overload. What of it?"

Somehow Cliffjumper's face was becoming as red as his armor. "Well, um . . ." He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. After a moment in which he gathered his courage, he let it all out in one large, nervous tumble of words.

"So we decided to interface like that, and it was great, it really was, but then something changed—well, Nightstalker reacted differently from the first time, a lot differently. She—wanted me to call her—call her—"

His vocals hitched on the words, and Ratchet frowned, his medical side sensing where this was heading as all the dots lined up in his mind. "Call her what?"

"My play bot," he finally choked out. "She wanted me to call her—Well—! She wanted me to call her all sorts of bad things, to frag her until she was fucked so hard she couldn't breathe. She wanted me to smack her so hard I was afraid I was going to hurt her, she wanted me to bite her so hard I'd break her protoform, she wanted me to choke her, and she wanted me to overload on her face and call her my little glitch."

Cliffjumper dipped his helm again, staring at his peds. Ratchet blinked, feeling sick on the inside. "Did you do it?"

"Oh Primus—Of course I did!" His voice cracked as he strode a step or two away, shaking from the memory. "I—Ratchet, she was begging me so much, I could barely satisfy her, it was so different, it—it scared me. What—" and he turned back to the medic with hurt, wide optics, "Why did she want me to do that? That's not—It wasn't . . ."

Ratchet reached up to pinch his brow, feeling like a bag of bricks had suddenly crashed down on his processor. "Come with me to the back," he finally said to Cliffjumper. "We can talk in private there." Then, he looked up and called across the room, "Nightstalker! Come here!"

She had to give a hug to Bumblebee before she came up. Her orange optics looked between them both. "What's going on?"

Ratchet shook his head. "Just come here."

Both mech and femme followed him in silence, casting each other nervous glances as Ratchet brought them into a training room. The CMO whirled, looking hard at them both a second before he focused his attention on Nightstalker. "Nightstalker. Cliffjumper has been talking to me about recent sexual behaviors."

She blinked wide, a look of complete horror stealing over her features. However, she whipped around to Cliffjumper, crying out, "How could you? Cliffjumper, that was private! You can't just go talking about that to anyone!"

"Nah-ah-ah," Ratchet cut in, "he came to me because he is worried."

Her bubble of anger and self-consciousness busted as quickly as it had formed. "He . . . what?"

Cliffjumper shifted his feet uncertainly as Ratchet nodded. "Yes. In short, he says things got pretty violent and some words were shared that weren't very good for any confidence levels." He arched his brow. "Thus, I've . . . come to some conclusions about you, Nightstalker, that I thought that you both need to know."

The mech and femme sent each other a nervous glance. Nightstalker looked back up at him, feeling like she was in trouble. "Which . . . is?"

Ratchet took a deep breath, steeling his emotions before saying, "Nightstalker, I believe you have a series of medical disorders: Stockholm Syndrome, Sadomasochism, and perhaps a touch of hyper sexuality."

They both blinked. Nightstalker opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again. She dragged in a breath before pushing it out slow. "So what's Stockholm Syndrome?"

Ratchet pensively put his servos on his hips. "June talked to me about it. Stockholm is a form of traumatic bonding. It could be any sort of strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other. The pattern of interfacing you had with Cliffjumper was similar to the kind of interface you would have with Megatron, wasn't it?"

Nightstalker bit her lip and dropped her helm, guiltily nodding.

Ratchet paused. He licked his lips. "Nightstalker, I know you think you hate Megatron, but . . . Consider this for me: what if he came and wanted you back?"

"Want me back?" Nightstalker cried out, practically lashing the words out. "I—I wouldn't let him! Ratchet, he RAPED me!"

Ratchet nodded, bearing the brunt of her fuming optics. "I know. But would you honestly not consider it if he wanted to back? To take you as his queen? If he apologized, asked you to come back to him, and promised you the things he used to, would you really not consider it?"

Nightstalker shook. She turned, pressing her hands to her lips in horror as she processed Ratchet's words, and she heard Cliffjumper's breath seize behind her.

"Nights . . . You wouldn't . . ."

Frustrated tears rose. She jutted her chin up, staring at the far wall. "I'm never going to be free of him, am I?"

Ratchet shook his head, grabbing her hand in his. "Don't talk like that, Nightstalker. These kinds of things don't heal overnight."

"Well I wish they did!" she shouted, ripping her hand away and crossing her arms over her chassis. Cliffjumper looked up at Ratchet.

"I . . . guess I can figure what sadomasochism is."

Ratchet nodded. "She takes sexual pleasure in the giving and receiving of pain."

"So what if I do?" Nightstalker snapped, wings perking aggressively and hands balling into fists. She backed a step away, orange optics cutting like fire. "There's nothing wrong with that!"

Ratchet's spark throbbed at the feral look rising in her optics. "Nightstalker . . . There's nothing wrong with it until you take it to the extreme."

She scowled, crossing her arms again and wings fanning madly as she muttered, "There was nothing extreme about that. It wasn't like we have any kind of bondage equipment in this Primus-forsaken Autobot base."

Cliffjumper shifted next to her, but Ratchet ignored her bitter words. "And hyper sexuality. In other words, you may be rather addicted to sex." He paused when she didn't respond to that. "How many times have you two interfaced?"

Cliffjumper looked away. Nightstalker stolidly kept her arms crossed and stared at the wall, ignoring him, so Ratchet was prompted to add, "Let me take a guess. Every night since the first interface?"

Nightstalker didn't move, but Cliffjumper nodded. "Sometimes I have troubles keeping up with her," he muttered quietly.

"So what?" Nightstalker said harshly. She glared at them both. "So Megatron's fucked me so much he literally fragged up both my processor and body? That's just great. I'm never going to be normal."

Her quick switch from anger to depression caused Ratchet to pause. "I think you may be bipolar too."

"Heap it on, heap it on," she hissed. "Anything else?"

Ratchet waved a hand, dismissing her anger. "No. But while we've been using the word bipolar frivolously, I really do think that's why your emotional output is so extreme. It's . . . not an official diagnosis, but with all the conjectures I've had the time to make, additionally Cliffjumper telling me about your sexual habits . . ." His optics softened in pain as he looked at her. "These kind of medical conditions usually fall hand in hand."

Everything seemed to drain from her. Her wings drooped, and she muttered, "So, what? There's no hope for me?"

Ratchet shook his head. "Don't talk like that. Of course there is. I can easily help with your manic-depressive tendencies with a medicated energon. Of your sexuality, you will have to have a great deal of control and drive to change, and Cliffjumper will have to help you."

The red Autobot blinked. "Me?"

Nightstalker nodded. "Like the first time," she whispered. Ratchet witnessed his throat bob, and he reached out and took her tiny servo in his.

"I'll make it right," he whispered back. His hand tightened on hers. "I promise. I won't let you down."

"Thanks," she murmured. "But . . . I don't know how you're going to do it."

"We'll figure it out as we go along."

Ratchet cleared his throat politely, reminding them that he was still there. Both mech and femme jumped before smiling sheepishly at each other with faint flushes. "It won't be easy," Ratchet told them, "but we can make this work."

Nightstalker nodded. Then, a shadow crossed her features. "Ratchet . . . Why am I like this? Why can't I be normal, and pretty, and strong like Arcee?"

Ratchet felt his spark slowly break. He took her free hand, covering it with his own as he looked her in the optics. "First of all, you ARE pretty. Beautiful even. Ask Cliffjumper. Ask Optimus. Ask me, or any other mech here. You ARE beautiful."

Cliffjumper leaned over, kissing the tip of her audio receptor, and Nightstalker's hands tightened. "Beautiful and mysterious like the night sky," he breathed softly.

Nightstalker's wings fanned, and she shivered. She still felt stifled and ugly, but Ratchet added, "If anything, I may suggest a change in colors."

Nightstalker looked up and blinked. "A change in my colors?"

Ratchet nodded. "Yes. Black may be a sultry color, but it seems to weigh you down."

She gaped at him a moment. Then, she snapped her mouth shut and dropped her optics. A moment, and she murmured, "I had my choice of colors. I picked black and orange because that was all that was left of Fli-Ni when the bomb took him away. Charred ground and fire."

Both mechs tightened their hands on her. "You can change the black, I don't care," Cliffjumper said, retracting his claim that he loved how the black complimented her curves. If it was something that held her down, he didn't want her to keep it, no matter how much he liked it.

Ratchet nodded firmly. "A change in colors would be good. A change in pace. And to finally let the memory of your brother rest in peace." He paused. "If I may be so bold, I think silver would be a stunning color on you."

Nightstalker blinked up at him, surprised. "That was my original color," she said softly. "Silver."

A rueful and gentle smile curved the medic's mouth. "Well then, I think we're on to something."

Nightstalker paused. She fluttered her wings. "So . . . A color change. I guess I can do that . . . But . . . Why AM I so messed up?"

"In truth? The attack on Kaon."

Her brow puckered a little. "That far back?"

Ratchet nodded. "Possibly even before then. The fact that you were experiencing a spark break and post traumatic stress disorder when Megatron first began to interface with you, it had to warp your thinking—after all, the overloads he gave you were the first thing that made you feel good after the loss of Nightflier and you clung to that, giving you a misguided conception of what interfacing was really supposed to be like."

Nightstalker nodded. That made sense. And every little thing that could have possibly been seen as nice—him staying some nights after he did her and holding her; the games of tag to blow off steam; the fact that she was the only one he seemed to talk to as a person. She had fallen for it all when he had just been using her the whole time.

"I also think your parents had a hand in this too."

Nightstalker blinked, looking up at him. "What?"

Ratchet nodded, squeezing her servo. "Yes. The lack of a proper father-figure all your life or even a mother-figure—you never had someone to tell you what was wrong and right. All you had to teach you was Airachnid and Megatron, Knockout—Decepticons that didn't understand the difference between right and wrong."

Nightstalker dipped her head. "Oh." With the revelations of everything today, her processor was starting to swim, and then, she got a ping in her communications:

_*Hey, Nights! The kids are here!*_

She smiled softly, biting her lip. "All right, we're coming back to the front." When Cliffjumper and Ratchet gave her a funny look, she said, "The kids are here."

Cliffjumper's grin grew; Ratchet's face just pinched.

Nightstalker just took the time to hug them both for their support before she headed back up to the front with them, finding them all embroiled deep in conversation about what had been going on the late days. Nightstalker's spark warmed at the very sight of little Raf.

"So . . . You guys could really be going home soon, huh?"

"Don't worry, Raf!" Miko said easily. "We'll come visit! Once we get our place set up, you can bunk with us! Right Bulk?"

It was then, as Nightstalker froze almost mid-motion that she realized what Raf was realizing—and Bulkhead. He looked away uneasily, unable to keep her gaze. "Uh, Miko . . ."

"You ARE taking me with you . . . right?"

"Aren't we all getting ahead of ourselves?" Ratchet cut in with the voice of reason. "Not only do we lack any actual method of reaching Cybertron, but Starscream now controls the sole means of our planet's restoration."

Nightstalker squeezed over, whispering hello to Raf and giving the human a squeeze. Ah, she'd missed him. They'd have to play a round of games before she went nuts.

"As far as we know," Optimus said gravely. Nightstalker looked up.

"You think Starscream's rejoined the 'Cons?" Smokescreen suggested.

"He might have used the Omega Keys to buy back Megatron's favor," Arcee added, optics narrowing at the thought.

Ratchet just scoffed. "Without first trying to sell them to the highest bidder? It wouldn't surprise me if he had the nerve to contact us, and—!"

The computers beeped with a message at that exact moment, causing everyone to blink and look up at the computers. That was creepy.

"Whoa—now THAT'S weird!"

"Is it Starscream?"

Ratchet reached over, checking, and he shook his head. "No. It is Dreadwing." He turned, looking back at them, Nightstalker in particular. "And he wants to meet."

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><p>A hand clamped over Knockout's and he gasped in scared surprise, looking up to meet solid red optics.<p>

"Everything . . . okay here?"

He let a small, disturbing little smile curl his mouth plates at the look on Knockout's face, and the red medic quickly stuttered, "J-Just checking cable integrity!" His optics were huge as he lied through his teeth, but Dreadwing let it go, having thwarted Knockout's plan to kill Megatron. In truth, the higher ranking Decepticon was not interested at all in Starscream's interrogation. He just had to keep his optics on Knockout as Soundwave had requested—and in good time too. If he hadn't shown up in the room when he had, his lord and master would have been—

"Is it any wonder that I've come to value loyalty above all else?"

Starscream gave a nervous chuckle, and Dreadwing just marched Knockout up to the computer where they watched the interrogation. "W-Well, we ARE Decepticons. I'm sure that even your beloved Dreadwing isn't perfect."

"No one is perfect, Starscream. But like his departed twin, Dreadwing understands honor!"

And then, a series of Starscream's memories flashed, quick and vibrant as he thought too loud, and Dreadwing stared on in a mixture of shock, horror, and then, white-hot anger at the truth. He watched as Skyquake was awakened, refused Starscream's orders, and then, as Starscream simply watched as his twin was murdered by—

Dreadwing carefully kept his expression deadened as he watched Bumblebee take down his brother. Bumblebee—Not Optimus. The young scout. It burned to know that his brother had been killed by one so young, but it was honorable death, fighting for Megatron's cause. As Bumblebee leapt from a cliff side to land on Skyquake and rip up his parts, Dreadwing begrudgingly allowed some respect for the scout—he had guts, and he had proved his mettle.

And then, Dreadwing stiffened. Dark energon? It spread through his brother's body like a plague, raising him from the dead and giving his corpse un-sentient life to walk again.

"I understand he perished that day," Megatron said.

Starscream gave a noncommittal noise. "Well, Skyquake is neither living nor dead, and continues to wander through some dimensional nether realm, in search of his . . ." and he gave a little laugh, "missing limb."

Megatron grunted. "It would be wise to keep that to yourself around the warship."

Something sick with hatred curdled in Dreadwing's chassis. The ache of his spark break intensified until he thought his spark would bleed out right where he stood. He would keep something like that from him—his own lord and master. No—No longer. He couldn't follow someone who allowed atrocities like that—

"Well," Starscream said on a slight chuckle, "I certainly do well with keeping secrets."

As he said that, past thoughts rose to the front of his mind. The image changed to Nightstalker, and it flickered to—Dreadwing's intakes seized.

Ampere.

It was an image of her. Dreadwing's clenched fists slacked at the sight of his lost love. For a second, the anger drained. Longing filled his chassis at the silver paint, her petite form, the blue optics, and the arch of her body when she would—

His mind shuttered and stalled. He stared in horror for half a click before Starscream got his thoughts back under control, and the picture of Ampere arched and crying out in overload faded. The glow of her spark faded. Starscream vainly tried to push the memory away, and Megatron turned to him with thinly veiled curiosity.

"If I'm not mistaken, that femme bears a striking resemblance to Nightstalker." Megatron hiked a brow, and Starscream chuckled nervously. "Ampere?"

Dreadwing's spark seized; it turned icy. Cold as steel. "An unfortunate accident," Starscream said ruefully, trying to laugh it off. The images flickered again, hazy and distorted as Starscream struggled to remember, but all Dreadwing could catch was brief glimpses of Ampere's blue optics, her sultry black protoform, the glow of her spark—his intakes shuddered, agonized warmth bunching in his chassis in remembrance of taking her as his own; his femme; taking her into his life, his spark, his love.

"I can't even quite remember how it happened," Starscream was muttering. "All I can remember is a very large amount of high grade, some pathetic story of hers about helms, and then she was all over me like some desperate little glitch and I was . . ." and Starscream gave another rueful laugh. "Well, as the humans so naturally coined it, I was too _hammered_ to stop her or care."

Megatron arched a brow, looking down at the seeker in a different light. "After all her years of looking for her father, and you never thought to tell her that it was you?"

Starscream waved a hand. "Oh, PLEASE. I didn't want anything to do with them! I cut the bond as soon as possible and she lost me when the war started. I didn't even know I had sparked her until later when she came back all pathetic and desperate saying that she had my daughter with her." Starscream's face wrinkled. "And, she did. With my helm and heels and everything." He snorted. "She even acts like me. Cowards one and all, though I have to admit, I'm doing much better in that retrospect than she ever has."

Dreadwing was frozen. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. His processor shuddered as he processed it—

Starscream was Nightstalker's father. The mech that had adulterated Ampere.

He was just about to turn on his heel, having heard enough, when Starscream decided to add, "And just to add insult to injury, Nightstalker doesn't know I'm her father, and she doesn't even realize that she's been trying to kill me all her life!"

Dreadwing froze. His wings twitched.

Megatron stared at Starscream a moment, and then, he laughed, long and harsh. "Her entire life she slaved over who had killed her brother! And now you stand here, telling me that it was you? She had you within her grips all her life and never knew?"

Starscream grinned, sensing that his acceptance to the Decepticons was gold. "The irony kills me!"

He turned a left. He couldn't take listening to this blasphemy—not a click longer. His emotions battered in his chassis like a whirlwind of storms, black and clashing as lightning lanced through his spark and thunderous clouds swarmed over him. The pressure on his spark increased until he thought he would be crushed under the despair and rage.

Primus, the RAGE. It came alive inside him like a feral beast, ripping and tearing him apart from the inside out until he was consumed with it. His peds moved of their own accord, taking him to the top of the ship, into the thunderstorm, into the rain that washed over him like a libation, pouring over his wounds and cleansing him of the lies he had lived all his life serving under Megatron.

Decepticons—masters of deception. To each other . . . and to their own sparks.

An emptiness so real spread, locking down on Dreadwing's limbs until he felt like he was shouldering the entire universe. The nothingness thrust into his soul dragged him down into darkness as he stood in the whipping winds and lashing rain, lightning cracking like a whip and thunder rumbling as death's toll. Suffocating fear. All alone. Heart untold. Broken down. Uncovered eyes; the truth burned in his soul.

With an Earth-shattering roar, Dreadwing unleashed his rage and despair.

* * *

><p>"Drop your weapons!"<p>

"Hands where we can see them!"

Nightstalker crept behind the bots, flattening her wings on her back so she was harder to be spotted, and she used Bulkhead as a shield. She peeked between their legs to try and find Dreadwing, but the fog was thick. All she could hear was his voice as he said:

"I am not here to fight, but to give you this."

This? What was it? She couldn't see from her vantage point, only could see something glitter slightly gold on the ground.

"The Forge of Solus Prime," Arcee said tensely.

"Could be rigged to blow," the ever suspicious Bulkhead muttered.

She heard Optimus's battle mask slide back. "Dreadwing, what do you ask in return?"

Nightstalker crept a little closer, unseen and unknown behind the Autobots' backs to see Dreadwing standing stolidly, the Forge between them. "Only that . . . you use it wisely."

Now THAT sounded suspicious. What was he getting at?

"And?" Arcee prompted. "The Omega Keys?"

"In Megatron's possession," Dreadwing rattled off freely. "Under heavy guard."

After a moment's more of hesitation, it was Optimus that transformed his cannons back to his servos. "Why?"

"A shadow of disgrace has been cast across the Decepticons," Dreadwing stated. Nightstalker's brows pinched. What? Dreadwing's helm fell. "It is a cause I no longer wish to be part of."

When Optimus walked forward, the Autobots immediately parted for his broad shoulders, and Nightstalker shuffled behind Bulkhead who was proving to be a useful shield. "Then I appeal to you again," Optimus said. "Join us and help end this conflict once and for all."

Dreadwing blinked. "Betraying my kind . . . is not the same as accepting yours."

As he turned, they could catch a glimpse of his face wrought with sorrow. His shoulders slumped before he paused and forcefully lifted his head to the distance. "I need you to pass on a message to the one called Nightstalker."

Her spark jumped. "I'm right here!" she burst. She jumped into sight around Bulkhead and Bumblebee, intending on running up to him, but Bulkhead grabbed her arm quickly, exclaiming, "Nights, no!"

She swatted at his hand. "Let GO." To her astonishment, he did so. Coming up to Dreadwing, she stepped over the Forge and stopped, looking up at him. "What is it?"

He blinked down at her, passion embroiled in his optics like misfortune smeared black. "You have demanded answers to your past," he stated without inflection. His servos fisted, and Nightstalker's spark fluttered a panicked beat. This was it. He knew. She could see it in his optics. He knew what had happened.

"What happened?" she asked breathlessly. Her optics looked up to his with a kind of desperate hope. "Do you know who my father is? Who killed Fli-Ni?"

His body seized up like he had been attacked. His optics darkened. "Bloody, lecherous villain!" he growled. His scowl deepened. "Is it not painfully obvious what wretch would stoop so low? Starscream, you fool! It was always Starscream!"

Nightstalker flinched and recoiled back as if she had been struck by his words. Her optics popped, orange staring blankly at the giant seeker's chest. No. That was too easy. She—She had had him within arm's reach her whole life, one quick swing of terminating him all her life, and she had squandered it without even KNOWING IT!?

"And your father," Dreadwing said darkly. Nightstalker's head snapped up with pained hope. Dreadwing's optics flashed. "Your father is Starscream."

She blinked. A sickening feeling spread over her circuits, and finally, when the shock allowed her to breathe in an in cycle, she shook her head. "No," she finally said. She gave a weak laugh, shaking her head at the cruel irony of all of it, denying, "No, he's not my father. H-He isn't my father, don't even JOKE about scrap like that, you glitch!" Filled with sudden anger, Nightstalker shook, orange optics glaring back at Dreadwing with just as much hatred as he did her.

"I only speak the truth, from Starscream's lips himself!" Dreadwing snapped back.

"If he was my father he would have TOLD me that!" Nightstalker snarled, shaking she was so horrified and angry. "He would have SAID something to me! He was right there all my life, and—"

"You were a mistake!" Dreadwing growled, taking an intimidating step forwards. Every Autobot behind her shifted aggressively. Dreadwing glared down at her. "You were nothing but a mistake spawned from too much high grade, a glitch, and a coward!"

"If she was a glitch then why did you bond with her!" Nightstalker snapped, hurt tears beading in her optics. Her spark pulsed with anger and pain. "If she was such a glitch, why would you bond with her and have Fli-Ni?"

"Because I LOVED her!" Dreadwing shouted. His servos grabbed her by both shoulders, and the Autobots yelled out warnings, but both seekers ignored them, consumed in their own conflict. Dreadwing shook her, repeating, "I LOVED her! I loved her from the darkest pits of my spark, and she betrayed me! She disowned me, changed Nightflier's helm, and wanted nothing to do with me! So I cut the bond! I would not stay with a femme who would despise who I am!"

"Because she was trying to protect Fli-Ni!" Nightstalker cried back. She gave a helpless motion. "She didn't want to be a target!" She heard Knockout's bitter words in the back of her processor and repeated them to Dreadwing. "People take advantage of bonds like that, you know!"

"She should have been faithful!" Dreadwing growled. He shoved her away, stalking a few steps away. "I would have protected her, but she didn't trust me! She dishonored me! And then—" and he gave an indefinite gesture, "You! That adulterous glitch bonded with STARSCREAM of all pathetic mechs and had you!"

"Starscream is not my father!" Nightstalker denied again angrily.

"He is!" Dreadwing barked. He whirled on her again, blazing red optics cutting. "Have you even LOOKED at the shape of your helm? Where do you think your sociopathic tendencies come from? Why do you think you're such a coward? It's in your energon!"

Nightstalker flinched back at the cruel words, shaking and fluttering her wings as she tried to come to grips with the facts. Dreadwing frowned again, mouth slanting fiercely downward. "Ampere and Starscream were drunk. You weren't even meant to be conceived. A mistake."

Nightstalker set her jaw and jutted her chin up. "Is that right? I think it's your fault!" Dreadwing narrowed his optics. "You blame Mom for committing adultery, but YOU were the one who broke the bond! It wasn't adultery if she wasn't bonded to you!"

She didn't even have time to react. His servo clocked her beneath the chin, and she sprawled out across the ground. There was an angry shout, and Nightstalker jumped to her peds and glared at Cliffjumper when he bolted forward. "Keep out of this!" she snapped at him. He skidded to a halt, optics wide and bewildered. Nightstalker wiped the trickle of energon from her mouth. "This is between me and him!"

Nightstalker whirled, but she bit back her anger at Dreadwing. Sure, she was pissed off, but he was the last of her family. Her step-father. After Knockout betrayed and locked her out of his spark . . . Dreadwing was her last chance of a true family. She took a deep breath, steeling her will.

"Look," she finally said. "People make mistakes." Dreadwing scowled, turning away from her and looking far into the distance. Nightstalker walked forward and grabbed the very servo that had just struck her. His head snapped to her. "I—I don't care. I just—You're all the family I have left! And I—I don't want to lose you, no matter what issues we have."

Dreadwing shook his head, but she was surprised when took her hand more firmly, the plating of his wrist parting to expose a link cable.

Her throat jumped. It was like a download. What in the world did he want with that? Nervously, Nightstalker allowed the connection, but Dreadwing refused to look at her. Finally, she whispered as a rather large file began to transfer, "What is this?"

His jaw ticked. "Consider it a gift," he muttered.

Nightstalker shook her head. "No. Don't just leave me with a file. Stay here. With me. Don't go back to the Decepticons if there's nothing left!"

Dreadwing stolidly kept his silence, dark storm clouds gathering beneath his complexion. "Dreadwing? Come on, don't be like that. I'm trying to make things right for once!" Dreadwing just tensed up, shook his head, and pulled his hand away from hers when the file finished downloading.

"You look just like your mother," he said quietly.

"Become one of the Autobots! We can work things out, I promise—"

Something in Dreadwing snapped. He whirled on her shouting down with cruel optics, "I cannot live with the ghost of your mother haunting my every step!" Nightstalker felt the breath stolen from her, and she staggered back, the broken words hitting right in her spark. Dreadwing looked away again, a shaking servo reaching up to press at his chest, his spark. "By the Pit, you look just like her," he rasped. He shook his head. "And when you talk like that . . ." Both hands reached up to grip at his helm before he pushed away his despair and the anger came back. He glared back at her. "I cannot live knowing all that I do. My spark pains at the very sight of you! You, the offspring of the one I love, a glitch from the mech that has ruined me."

Dreadwing shook, and his servos clenched tightly. He glared momentarily over her head at Bumblebee, but pinned his optics back on her. "It was by Starscream's folly that my brother Skyquake died. He stood by and watched! And then, he desecrates his remains by raising him from the dead! He adulterates my spark mate, has a child I detest the sight of, steals my rank among the Decepticons, and kills my only son!"

Dreadwing's bellowing voice tapered off, and he shook with rage and despair. Just when Nightstalker thought he was going to snap again, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Starscream has ruined me. He has consumed my spark from the inside out. I suffer spark break from my brother, my mate, my son. I cannot live with it. Not any longer . . ."

Nightstalker's neck tightened. "No!" she cried, jumping forward. She snagged his hand again. "You can't go! You're all I have left!"

"You are not mine!" he bellowed back. Nightstalker recoiled, staggering back again at his cold cruelty. He scowled, turning away again. "I have lived in my misery long enough. I will go back. And I with either kill Starscream or die trying."

Nightstalker watched in horror as Dreadwing turned and walked away, but his shoulders were slumped. No. He had given up before he had even tried. He merely wanted to die and go to the Well of All Sparks with his brother. Killing Starscream would only be icing on the cake. He was walking away to die.

And there wasn't anything she could do. Nightstalker ran forward, screaming after him, but he jumped from the cliff and took off, flying away for good. The last image of him she would ever see. She stood shock still as the last glimmer of his thrusters faded from sight. The silence pounded. Her spark bled. Then, with a scream, Nightstalker lost it, kicking the Forge, scratching at her paint, and screaming her throat raw of all the injustice her life had led. With a defeated cry, Nightstalker fell to her knees and clutched at her helm, rocking and shaking with tears.

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry. I picked the worst time to tell you all that I did."<p>

Nightstalker gave a slight shrug, cuddled into Ratchet's chassis. Her place of comfort. Still her father. Always. "I needed to know."

"There could have been a more prudent time."

Cliffjumper squeezed the hand he held. "He's right, you know."

Bumblebee looked up, hands holding her peds in his crisscrossed lap. *Are you sure you're okay? I don't care who your father was, Nights. I'll love you no matter what*

Nightstalker gave a pained smile down at him, and she rubbed her toes affectionately into his palm. "Thanks. It's just . . . a lot to take in. It hurts."

Ratchet's hand reached up to knead the sweet spot between her wings. "That's why we're here, Nightstalker."

At first, Ratchet hadn't wanted all of them around her at once, but Nightstalker told him that she wanted all three of them. It made her feel better, feel . . . less alone. Each heavy hammer of the Forge of Solus Prime crashed through the room as Optimus worked at a steady and diligent pace. Bulkhead, Arcee, and Smokescreen killed the time by talking to each other.

Nightstalker gave a little sigh, turning her face into Ratchet's chassis and linking her fingers with Cliffjumper's. "This is nice."

A noncommittal rumble from Ratchet. "Do you still want to kill your brother's killer?"

She paused. She felt Cliffjumper's thumbs stroke over the back of her hand. "I don't know."

It was the first time she had ever wondered about getting revenge for Fli-Ni. She had known all her life, and known she wanted revenge, but now . . . ? Yes, it was Starscream. But Starscream was also her father. Sure, she despised that he had never told her he was her father, but . . . That was just it. He was her FATHER. She felt like she had to love him by default. He had given her life. She wanted to be loved by him. Then again, after he had killed Fli-Ni and all but disowned her, it was clear he didn't care about her. She was just setting herself up for pain hoping so hopelessly for him to change. She stifled a bitter laugh. She really WAS a masochist.

She ought to kill him. He had done so many terrible things. He had even almost killed Cliffjumper, just for the hell of killing him. Her thumb stroked Cliffjumper's hand. He killed her brother. Probably on purpose. She shouldn't give him another chance—he didn't give Fli-Ni the second chance. But she couldn't find it in her to hate him now, even after all she knew. She felt weak because of the fact.

_Maybe I'll get my revenge when Starscream tells me he hates everything about me. When I go to him, ask him to be my father and love me, and he'll refuse, so maybe then I'll find all that anger that I'm supposed to have. I don't know where it all went. Maybe Megatron raped it out of me. Optimus will be certainly glad that I don't want to get revenge._

She looked up at the mysterious Prime. His entire body strained and surged with power every time he swung the Forge, slowly transforming the ground bridge into a space bridge. She wasn't mad at him for not telling her. In fact, it had probably been for the best anyways. He had always seemed to know what was best for her.

She hesitated to open the file Dreadwing had downloaded into her. A gift. She didn't know what to think of his gift. She was almost . . . afraid of what would be in there.

And, thus it was that with a couple more swings, Optimus had finished his work on the ground bridge—the space bridge. Their means of getting to Cybertron, their element of surprise. Megatron had figured out what the Omega Keys were—a massive surge of energy in space through the Decepticon space bridge alerted them that the 'Cons had jumped to Cybertron. And so they would follow with the element of surprise since the Decepticons didn't realize they had the means to advance to Cybertron. From across the base, Nightstalker could hear Cliffjumper hollering with good-natured—yet, kinda missing out—fun.

"Aw, c'mon! I don't get a fancy relic to use?"

Nightstalker heard Optimus rumble the reasoning behind it. Cliffjumper just snorted and laughed.

"I think you just like my fists a little too much, eh? Not to mention these triple cylinder ion cannons are pure sex! Like I need a relic to help me trash some 'Cons!"

She rolled her optics. Typical Cliffjumper. She worried for the Autobots, but trusted them as they bridged out—a squeezing hug from Bumblebee, a swiped kiss from Cliffjumper. Then, in a bright flash of light, they were gone.

Nightstalker settled leaning against Ratchet's peds to wait and see what would happen.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Btw, I have work on season 3 to do as I don't know what the episodes will be, and I also need to work out some personal kinks with it... So updates are going to stall for a bit after the next chapter.**


	49. Apparition

His highly sensitive peds froze, planting themselves flat on the ground for full perception. His wings perked. His large optics dilated as he stared out across the far edge of the Rust Sea. His peds read the measurements of the vibrations, his built-in seismometer determining whether it was a problem or just another minor quake.

Yet, as the seeker stood there, he felt the shifting patterns of the vibrations and knew that they came from no earthquake. He gave an annoyed but resigned sigh.

"Hey!" He shouted, waving his hand and blinking the Autobot symbols on his wings to get the attention of the bot posted on the top of the rickety fort their group held. "Minitron's coming for another visit!"

His mouth plates tipped up when he heard the bot swear, "Cybertron below me! It really wouldn't surprise me if the thing WAS Shockwave's pet! Sending it over here just to pick at our tailpipes . . . !" The bot swore again, shouting and sounding the alarm as the other four bots inside scrambled to get ready.

The seeker transformed and flew up to the top of the fort, landing next to the second. He took the grenade shoved into his hand as another bot exploded through the roof's door, toting a massive cannon.

"This the baby you want, Blades?" he said.

Blades grinned. "Frag yeah. We're gonna bust that thing's ugly mug into the bottom of this fragging wasteland!"

"He's coming up from the east," the seeker supplied helpfully.

"How far?"

"Oh, I dunno. He was about five kliks out and moving pretty fast."

"THAT'S helpful."

The seeker grinned up at him. "My forte." Then, he used his comm. link as the bot that had brought the gargantuan weapon loaded it. "Hey, Groove!"

_"Yeah?"_ was the answering reply, slow and easy as he ever was.

"First Aid's worked himself into another glitching panic attack." He grinned, tossing his grenade up and down. "Calm him down for me? I'm not gonna be able to focus with him freaking my spark out like this."

Groove just laughed him off easily, saying, _"Right, kid. I'll get him to quit being a femme carrying ornament."_

The seeker laughed, rich and warm as he chided, "And remind him that he's my big brother, NOT my mother!"

He waltzed back to Blades and the other bot, rolling his optics and saying, "You'd think he'd realize I've done this before! Scrap, at this point I'm a pro at it. Do it with my arms tied behind my back and blindfolded—"

"Focus, kid." The seeker jumped, catching the extra long whip that was thrown his way. As he raveled it up to hook it on his hip with the grenade, Blades trained his large weapon out to the distance, bracing it on his shoulder and propping it on the ledge. He asked, "How much time do we have? Groove isn't in position yet."

The lone seeker of the unit frowned. "Well, I don't know—"

"Then shut up, get down and find out! Swear I'ma cut that glossia from your mouth if you don't shut up and straighten up—"

The deep blue seeker just laughed, always so amazed at how tense Blades became on a battlefield. He stepped up onto the ledge, chuckling, "Don't twist a turbine! I'll check it—"

An explosion not a klik away shook the ground, and shouts erupted as gunfire filled the air. The seeker yelped and took off, amazed that the monster had snuck up on them so easily. He really DID need to drop the act and get serious.

The massive driller burst from the ground again with a shrill shriek, gargantuan and screeching as it tore so close to Groove it nearly decimated the Autobot in one blow. He drew up high, assaulting the giant, burrowing multi-tentacle beast that would rip apart buildings with ease and spread carnage like bloody rain. Not that their last base had been destroyed by the same thing, but the Rust Sea was a breeding ground for the monstrosities. The only good that came from a driller was this:

If there was enough energon deep in Cybertron for the driller to run itself, that meant Cybertron was slowly going on the mend.

With that positive thought, the dark blue seeker banked around to follow the driller as it menaced its way over to the edge of the base. Blades's voice was drowned out by the gears crashing and grinding in the driller's body as it drew up, but after having done this so many times, the seeker could easily place the words as something akin to this:

"Fraggit, kid! Hurry up! Cybertron below me, that thing is an UGLY mother of all—Fraggit, blow it already! Holy scrap it's on top of me you worthless piece of tin, TAKE IT OUT!"

When the Driller was about to crash into their base, the seeker finally transformed, snagged the pin and tossed the grenade on the driller's back before changing back to his flight mode and banking sharply away. A blast ricocheted the air behind him, giving him a nasty case of turbulence, but with smug success, he heard the driller shriek and rear up, turning its attention to him.

He further incited and infuriated the monstrous drilling beast by blinking his Autobot symbols, a feature he had for nothing other than to draw its attention. "Sorry, Minitron, but you're asking for it when you come and attack us!"

A larger explosion rocked below them, the blast nearly knocking Blades flat the driller was so close as he used the rocket launcher to get a close and direct hit on it. The driller screeched and burrowed back underground, huge twisting body ravaging the ground.

"Bit-Brain, I still can't believe you named that spawn of Unicron!"

"Bit-Brain" swooped low with a generous laugh at Blades's highly affronted offence, and he heard a whoop from their leader. Hot Spot was busy firing round after of his neutron assault rifle into the beast's nigh-impenetrable flanks with a wide grin. "I can believe it! Bit-Brain's as miss-clocked as they get! Besides, _I _think it'd make a great pet!"

Dubbed "Bit-Brain" in the heat of the moment, the seeker just laughed as he swerved around for another go at the beast, though he knew his stun rays really didn't do much—they worked against soldiers, not a hulking mass of that size. "Well, I can't believe you guys would call me something as offensive as THAT!" But his laughter belied his indignation.

The driller tore up through the ground again, this time taking the lower east edge of the base with it, decimating—

"Hey! That's my recharge room you worthless Pit-spawn!"

The seeker whirled around as the bots unleashed a flurry of pounding bullets into the beast's side, bullets pinging off and laser fire just barely managing to sear the surface of the driller. The seeker landed on the building, and taking up the energon whip, lashed out at the driller. The little shocks near its face made it hiss and rear up, and the bot narrowed his blue optics. Several of the smaller appendages with their ripping saws jabbed towards him.

Snapping the whip around the lower part of the driller's jaw, the seeker swooped down and used the energon whip as a rope, swinging himself away from the attacking tentacles and up and around until he landed on the driller's back. He dug his peds into the driller's shifting body as it reared up, slinging with the effort to get him off.

The seeker yipped and howled as he rode the bucking beast. Hot Spot was right there with him, hollering out, "That's the way, Bit-Brain! Ride it!"

Through his comm. link, the seeker heard First Aid explode, _"You got a glitch in that processor of yours? You're going to get yourself killed!"_

His deep voice laughed as he slapped the whip down on the head of the driller, the lashes of pain in the weak spots making the driller thrash its head. "I'll be fine! Just lemme do my work!"

_"You haven't done something as stupid as RIDE it before!"_

"Improvising!" the seeker yelled back above the screeching of the driller. Blades yelped and roared when a sawing tentacle cut across his propellers, sending the helo in a nasty spin to the ground. The seeker lashed the whip around one of the mandibles in the giant creature's gaping maw, and he yanked and pulled. The driller shrieked, whip cutting into sensitive parts, and it followed where the seeker pulled him.

Groove gave up trying to hurt the thing with his gun, conserving his weaponry. Instead, he gave a salute. "You have fun, Bit-Brain! I swear, at the rate you're going with this thing, you'll have it following your every order like a pet!"

Streetwise, banking around the edge and dodging some nasty tentacles, laughed heartily. "Aw, Pit! Bit-Brain, if you do manage to tame this thing, we'll have to plough right in and attack the Decepticon base!"

Bit-Brain gritted his dentures, body arching and reeling as the driller tried to throw him off. "Hey now! I have a name!"

"Not anymore you don't!" Blades snarled at him, First Aid nursing his sawed-through propeller and patching him up to preserve precious energon. He shook a fist. "You're Bit-Brain now, and you'll never grow out of it!"

Even in the midst of heated battle, Bit-Brain couldn't help but laugh before he yelped, the driller twisting its body and diving for the ground. He threw himself off, hitting the ground hard and rolling as the driller burrowed back underground. It dug near the surface—he could see the ground mounding up where it moved. It was going to come up for another attack.

"Bit-Brain!"

The seeker turned and caught the grenade thrown at him, and he transformed and flew to the top of the base again, getting the height advantage as the driller burst from the ground again. The seeker aimed carefully, took the pin out, and threw the grenade. The driller moved at the last second, so it pinged near the edge of its maw instead of falling in, but the explosion caught the beast's attention. Blinking his Autobot symbols on his wings, the driller screeched, lunging for him.

Bit-Brain jumped and transformed, flying out of the way as the driller took off the upper edge of the base. Its sole attention was focused on him and no one else. He kept blinking his Autobot symbols to antagonize it more, and Hot Spot whooped as the seeker began to bait the beast away.

"Atta boy! Drop it off somewhere and get back here pronto! We've got loads of repairs for the base to do, mainly YOUR room!"

"You just keep picking on me, guys!" he hollered at the top of his vocalizer. "You're gonna regret it when I pull a prank on you one night!"

With that, they were out of audio shot of each other, and the seeker darted through the air, teasing the driller by letting it get close as it chased him and zooming out of reach of its dangerous tentacles. He even skidded close to the surface of Cybertron to taunt it as they crossed the grounds quickly, bringing them farther and farther away from the fort.

The seeker brought the gargantuan "Minitron" plenty of miles out from the base, knowing how far the driller could go in a short span of time. He burned thrusters when the yawning jaws of the driller sliced close to him before pulling away, weaving in between tentacles with the ease and skill of one who had done this job countless times. Baiting the driller away was as easy as breathing for him anymore.

Thus, when he was pressing the borders of their communications range, "Bit-Brain" swooped out above the deep of the Rest Sea, knowing exactly where a nasty pit was that the driller would fall into. He let it get close again with a great lunge, and then, it shrieked as it fell, half-submerged in gritty rust and bot parts and decaying ships.

The seeker transformed, landing on the familiar peak of the communications tower of one ship, affectionately named _"The Bootleg" _since he couldn't read the real name. The letters had already been eaten away by the rust. With a wide grin that disappeared beneath his battle mask, he whooped and pumped his fists in elation for a job well done as Minitron writhed and squirmed in the rust, trying not to drill under and ruin its entire body and still get out.

"Eat that, you nasty little mudslogger!"

As he shouted that, his sensors picked up a sharp spike of energy to the south. He turned his head, ignoring the screeching driller as he looked, a frown creasing his features. Faint blue glowed in the distance, and he hesitated. A ping came into his communications.

_"Hey, Bit-Brain? You getting that?"_

He gave a half shrug, brows cinching as he said back to Hot Spot, "Loud and clear. And . . . I think I'm seeing it."

_"Seeing it? What is it?"_

He shook his head as if his leader could see him. "Not sure. I can't see anything but a faint blue glow from here."

_"Really?" _A pause, muffled talking, shuffling. _"The readings are off the charts. I don't know how I feel about sending you out alone, but . . . Check it out. Report back, got it?"_

"Got it."

Playfulness gone with the prospect of a real mission and not just toying with a driller, the seeker transformed and took off towards the glow. A second later, and it faded.

_"The energy readings are gone."_

"So is the light," he said. Drawing close to the remains of Uraya, he transformed, landing lightly on a building that thankfully didn't creak under his weight. He frowned through the dim remains of the city, and then, his jaw dropped.

_"We have another spike of energy several miles north of your position."_

In shock, he stammered in a hushed whisper over the comm. link, "You guys—that's MEGATRON!"

_"What? Megatron? Are you—"_

"I'm sure!" he burst, running over a fallen beam and ducking behind a rounded and decaying building-top. "I'm looking at him right now! Scrap, he's got some—some sort of weapon on his back, a sword, but it's nothing like I've ever seen before. Jagged, purple, seeping some sort of energy, it's giving me a chill just looking at it."

Mutterings across the line from his team, and First Aid asking, _"Dark energon?"_

_"That sounds like him," _Hot Spot said thoughtfully. _"The description fits, but I don't see how he could make something like that."_

The seeker waved a hand, creeping above the Decepticons as he reported quietly, "He's got a battalion of soldiers with him."

_"A BATTALION?"_ Hot Spot said in shock.

He nodded, wide blue optics sweeping them all in shock. "A whole battalion. Easily a hundred. All fliers. Wait—" and he zoomed his optics in. "I've got four in the center front, carrying some sort of gold . . . item."

_"More descriptive?"_

"It's . . ." The seeker made a face, shaking his head. "They're gold, about the size and width of your forearm, Commander. Intricate design. Looks nothing but a fancy trinket, but all those Vehicons are holding them with both hands."

Hot Spot cursed. _"Great, as if we needed MEGATRON here. I thought Optimus had taken the battle off-world—"_

"Quiet!" the seeker snapped. "He's talking!" and he turned up his audio receptors until he got a little feedback from the wind, but he could faintly hear Megatron's words: " . . . the Keys, the object we seek is located deep within the Sea of Rust."

The seeker gritted his teeth when a wind blew, making the building he eavesdropped on groan and sway. He ducked back down, whispering, "They're looking for something in the Rust Sea. He mentioned something about keys, but I don't know what he's talking about. Might be the gold trinkets."

Hot Spot cursed again. _"They're coming our way, aren't they?"_

The seeker shook his head. "No. They're angled east, not north. They won't find us."

_"Good. We've taken too much damage to go right into the thick of it, and with those kinds of numbers, we'd just get slaughtered. Get back to base."_

"Wait!" The seeker ducked through the buildings, knowing the landscape by heart and easily tailing the group without getting seen. "Let me tail them. This is too big not to keep an eye on it." When Hot Spot gave a disapproving rumble, the seeker frowned and kept up with the group, a little bit of a difficulty as he had to jump from building to building. "Something big's going on, Commander, and whatever the 'Cons are looking for, I'll just be quick to swipe it before they get they're claws on it. He brought a whole BATTALION with him. He's desperate. At least if I don't even act, we can at least have some intel on this."

Hot Spot gave a frustrated sigh. _"All right. Tail them, and BE CAREFUL. I don't need to be prying you from Shockwave's operating table again!"_

He smirked briefly. "Yes, sir."

He followed the Decepticon battalion easily, keeping up and moving down when he became worried that a beam would break beneath him and give him away. The winds picked up—he gritted his jaw as he realized a storm was brewing. He swore under his breath, not looking forward to the rust infesting under his armor, but plodded along with the Decepticons, moving deeper and deeper into the Rust Sea, just barely inside communications range of the Protectobots.

After several more clicks, the seeker accessed his comm. link again. "I'm being tailed."

_"By who?" _Hot Spot said sharply. _"Lose them."_

The seeker frowned, feeling a gaze on him but not sure what to think of it. "I . . . don't think they're tailing me in particular. I think they're tailing the 'Cons too."

_"There were two bursts of energy," _Streetwise supplied helpfully. _"Two different locations. One was the 'Cons, so the other had to be 'Bots. After all, I highly doubt that if Megatron brought a battalion that size that he wasn't expecting resistance."_

The seeker was about to respond when he heard gunfire from the rear. Whipping his head, his optics popped as he saw all hell starting to be unleashed.

His hand flashed to his audio receptor. "Autobot sighted! Autobot, nine o'clock! White and blue, grounder, Elite Guard!"

Disbelief poured from the other side of the line. _"One Autobot against—"_

He ducked to the side, hiding as he watched the bot hit and run, gathering all the attention to the rear. Just before the seeker looked to the front, knowing that was what the distraction was for, his optics popped.

"He just ran through a wall! I repeat, just ran through a wall—! Oh . . . slot . . ."

_"Bit-Brain? You all right? Status!"_

His big blue optics widened as he watched a heaping mound of fallen debris, metal, and beams lift up high, a magnetic field holding it, and then, it crashed down on top of a section of Vehicons, crushing them to scrap. His optics flickered to the movement above, and he assessed the bot immediately.

"I'm fine! Yellow grounder, moves like a scout!"

Megatron's face warped. "CRUSH THEM!"

All gunfire focused on the little scout, and the seeker watched as he transformed into a strange alternate mode. His optics swept the battlefield as he hid just out of sight, spark beginning to hammer in his chassis.

"Little red grounder, six-cylinder ion cannons. Big green grounder. They all seem to have some strange weapons, nothing of the sort I've ever seen before!" He shifted, moving to get a better look as his optics flashed up. "Tiny little blue femme—SLOT!" His exclamation was cut off by watching her place a round item on her chassis, and in a click, was encased from head to toe in armor. "Scratch that, she's got some WICKED armor! Twice as big as the green bot! Bullets aren't doing anything, probably nigh impenetrable—The 'Cons are creating a barrier around those key things. They're defending—SLOT! Slot you guys, that's Optimus Prime!"

_"Optimus PRIME? You mean he's there?"_

"Right in front of me! With a sword to rival Megatron's—" He cut off, adrenaline setting in his neural net. "Permission to join the fray!"

_"What? You don't even know what—"_

"They're outnumbered twenty to one!" the seeker interrupted, trusting that he wouldn't get down the road for the disrespect. "There's only five of them, I've got to help them! We can ask questions later, but they need help now!"

_"Permission to engage granted!" _Hot Spot ordered. _"We'll try to get there as fast as we can, but we've gotta make a couple more patches and grab our gear. Hold out that long!"_

"That's too long and you know it!" the seeker shouted as he transformed up and took the skies. With how far out the Protectobots were and how far they would have to drive, there was no way they could make a lasting impression on this battle. Whirling up and diving back down, he duly noted to stay out of a twenty foot radius of Megatron and Optimus as their swords clashed so mightily that the energies surged like clouds.

The Autobot seeker angled himself down, shooting rapid stun blasts from his guns before landing on the ground in the midst of the Decepticons and grabbing his weapon, a lone short sword hanging from his hip. He drew the blade and slung the scabbard over his left arm in one fluid motion, yanking the chain tight so the scabbard lashed to his forearm. Thumbing over the gilded design, the scabbard activated into an electric shield, the concaved diameter of light extending from opening to tip, and he flung himself into the fray.

He slammed his shield into the closest Vehicon's face, the shocks of electricity shorting out his optics and audio receptors at the force it hit him, and he jabbed his sword beneath he 'Con's pit, hitting vital energon lines and leaving him incapacitated and leaking to death. He moved swiftly to the next with his own fighting style, a combination of the skills Blades gave him and a rugged Circuit-Su. He fought with reservations, knowing his small stature—solid armor or not—worked against him in combat. He fought defensively, attacking at the most opportune moments, and fell back often to gather his bearings and avoid damage. He battled by quickly disabling and killing. His style of combat focused on unlocking alternate routes, gaining access to good equipment, and obtaining an advantageous position over the enemy.

This . . . FREE FOR ALL reminded him exactly how much he hated this kind of fighting.

The dark blue seeker felt confined on all sides by the massing amounts of Vehicons, hacking at one's neck before gutting the next, searching for the soft spots and digging his short sword where it would do the most damage with the littlest amount of force needed. He felt like every spot was a blind spot. He might be a good warrior, but he was made for stealth missions! Hacking! Assassination! Sabotage! He was made for espionage at its finest! This brutal kind of battling, hacking and slashing, so quick he could only manage to keep his in cycles steady and regular, was not what he was used to, though he adapted as well as he could.

He whirled around, slicing the neck wires of the nearest Vehicon and using his shield to deflect laser fire before he saw a massive fist coming his way. Yelping and tumbling out of the way of the now-gigantic femme, he blinked his Autobot symbols and deflected more blaster fire, shouting, "Slot—! Friendly! I'm a friendly! Friendly fire!"

He felt her gaze on him for half a nanoclick before she whirled around, plowing through the Vehicons like a one-man army. Feeling safe picking off the ones that slipped her by, the seeker followed her footsteps, amazed at the slim stick that completely immobilized things, the strange force field that could pick up and sling anything metal, and the bot that could run through anything and come up from the ground like a wraith. It puzzled and bewildered him, this strange magic they had, but he wasn't about to question it.

As he sliced the wires in one 'Con's hip and finished him with a jab up in the throat, he turned to the next only to have a six-cylinder ion cannon pointed in his face. He jerked his shield up, blinked his Autobot symbols, and shouted again, "Friendly! Friendly!"

The red bot blinked at him before returning to the fray with him, beginning a back-to-back sort of stance. "Sorry!" the mech chatted easily on the field of battle with him. "You blended right in with them!"

The seeker snorted, ricocheting blaster fire with his shield. "That so? Makes me think you're color blind! I'm blue, not purple!"

The friendly Autobot laughed heartily. "Close enough! Dark colors!" He flinched when a shot whizzed by his head. "Besides, you're a seeker too, and those are few and far between on the Autobot side!"

"What can I say?" he said back. "I'm uncouth!"

"Name's Cliffjumper!" the red bot supplied. "Yours?"

Before he could answer, they were forced to break apart, bolting for cover when bullets erupted from the weak side. The seeker grunted, falling back and lifting his shield, he avoided a blast and whirled, gutting the nearest 'Con as the Autobots apprehended the key things. Once the items were seized, the Autobots transformed down into their strange alternate modes, and the seeker kicked off using the thrusters in his heels before transforming and following at a slower pace. His scanners picked up four Vehicon seekers following from the rear.

He banked left and right, avoiding their laser fire before pulling his nose up sharply, flipping up and backwards and transforming, landing one of them. Transforming his servo and jabbing it to the seeker, he shot him, stun blasters causing a temporary malfunction. He jumped off as the short-out was just long enough for the Decepticon to tip into a nosedive and crash to the ground. Falling behind the three remaining, he shot, disabling one more before they sped ahead above the Autobot's heads.

They seemed to realize that he had them covered because the Autobot's didn't stop but rather let him dart up again, throwing himself forward and transforming, and he sliced a jagged edge through the seeker's wing, causing him to crash violently to the ground. One of the bots transformed and shot the last one before it could get away, and they finally settled into an undisturbed drive towards wherever they were going.

The blue seeker followed them for a while, getting out of communication's range of the Protectobots, and—as figured—he felt First Aid contact him through their sparks.

_What's going on?_

He flew slowly so he wouldn't overtake the Autobots below him, noting with awe Optimus Prime leading them. _We've apprehended the key things Megatron was trying to protect, and now I'm with Optimus Prime and his group. We're headed southeast, down in the southern outskirts of Polyhex._

_ POLYHEX? You really are a fragging—Cybertron below me! Headquarters are in Kalis and you're all the way down in Polyhex? I oughta strip your paint for that!_

_ Not that! _Deep laughter from the shimmering blue seeker resounded through their sparks, trying to sooth his brother's panic. _I'm much too expensive for that!_

_ Why in Primus's name are you headed out of POLYHEX? We'll never reach you at this rate!_

_ You guys are on the move? _The seeker let puzzlement seep over the bond as he watched the Autobots transform up near—wait, that old thing? The most random little stump of metal in the universe, good for nothing, completely useless and just THERE? _Well, we're here, wherever we are. I'm missing out on something here, let me go down and see if I can get caught up._

_ Right. You be careful, got it?_

He could have rolled his optics.

_Got it._

Saying so, he flew down to where Optimus Prime was standing forward at the hunk of metal so old and unused he was sure it would never work. He landed next to the bot named Cliffjumper out of comfort's sake as the only one he sort of knew. He listened respectfully in silence to the Prime's words, but his optics drew to Arcee.

_Slot, she's hot._

_ What was that? _First Aid asked.

_Nothing!_

"According to Alpha Trion, the Omega Lock is a conduit to the very All Spark itself," Optimus was saying.

The white Autobot with the door wings came forward. He shook his head. "Optimus, an honor like this shouldn't belong to me."

He proffered the key, but before anything more could be say, they started glowing. The little seeker's optics widened as he watched, and to his immense surprise, the rusty old mechanism lit up too, responding to the close proximity of the keys.

The seeker blinked. _First Aid, something big is going on here._

_ Big like what?_

The seeker fell silent for a moment, watching as his jaw slowly dropped as the land around them began to transform. It shook all around, vibrating beneath his peds and tickling as massive pillars began to jut up, fold open and lock into place. The rust fell in waterfalls of waves as the columns rose up, and he watched the transformation lock everything into place, gigantic and empowering, and the dark skies were blotted out for energon blue energies blazing to life.

_Like, portal as big as Iacon big._

There was a pause.

_Quite joking._

He finally closed his gaping jaw.

_Not joking._

The scream of jet engines filled the air. The seeker jerked, whirling around with the other bots as he instinctively pulled his sword and shield again, battle mask sliding back into place as they all took aggressive stances at the sight of Megatron landing before them.

_How far out are you guys?_

_ Just passing through the southern edge of Uraya. We've got a ways to go yet._

_ Ah. Just checking. Hopefully Megatron doesn't lop our heads off._

"Autobots!" Megatron said, and his voice grated across the seeker's audio receptors. "I would suggest you put a halt to your task and hand over those keys."

"And why would we do that?" the certain outspoken Cliffjumper snorted.

His answer was a ground bridge. The seeker watched as his three generals—Starscream, Soundwave, and Knockout—all walked out, each bot holding—

Wait . . .

What were those little alien things?

Were those ORGANIC?

"So that I may hand over the humans."

The seeker blinked. All right, so they were classified as humans. What did humans have to do with anything? He looked to the bots around him, noting how they all stiffened like he held precious captives. Friends with off world beings? He couldn't imagine them getting that tense over pets, so they had to be sentient beings, correct? He narrowed his optics, trying to keep up with everything as he filled in First Aid over their bond so First Aid could keep Hot Spot updated.

"And if we refuse?" Optimus growled evenly.

Megatron stepped forward, getting right into his face. "Then I will have no choice but to open the pods, exposing your pets to Cybertron's TOXIC atmosphere. And then, we can all watch them instantly perish together."

THIS much drama over pets? No way. They had to be . . . SPECIAL in some sort of way. They had to be a key part in all of this somehow. But then, in the silence as Optimus silently weighed his options, he saw the one with the fuzzy fur on its head kick the glass pod and mutter, "NOT how I wanted to spend my first trip to Cybertron."

Megatron looked back. "Starscream!"

The seeker grinned. "Jaaaack!" he cajoled. "Time to come out and play!"

The blue seeker's wings twitched at the sound of his claws scratching against the glass. The little human named "Jack" glared back at Starscream, snapping, "Go ahead. The Autobots were prepared to sacrifice themselves over MY planet. I'll do the same for theirs."

"Me too! Creepy!"

Yes, okay, most definitely sentient. The seeker looked back to Megatron as he jabbed slyly, "Perhaps we should oblige them."

Optimus just blinked. "If my decision dooms the future of the Autobot cause on Cybertron, so be it. But I will never forsake our human allies."

With that, the seeker watched in shock as Optimus swung his sword, jamming it into the ground and laying down his arms to Megatron.

Over these . . . HUMAN things.

With a last wild thought, the seeker could only assume that these beings were more important than these key things somehow. He stubbornly kept his grip on his sword for a minute even as the femme took off the armor, throwing it forward to lay with Optimus's sword.

He couldn't imagine how they were so important that he could doom the entire Autobot cause—all their sacrifice over the years would have been for nothing—but he trusted him. They were clearly innocent, HELPLESS even, and it wasn't honorable to prey upon those so much weaker. As the rest of their mystic weapons collected with the grand blade, little Bit-Brain turned off his shield, sheathed his sword, and threw his out with the rest—albeit, just a narrow bit closer. The Protectobots had sunk a LOT of credits into that piece of equipment, and he wasn't about to throw it away to the Decepticons so easily.

The seeker talked with First Aid over their fraternal bond in secret, updating them as he watched the bots handing over these important keys to the 'Cons.

"If this human was important enough to entrust with the Matrix of Leadership, then he's worth TWO Omega Keys!"

In a rush, he repeated Megatron's words as the blue femme and the white bot handed their keys over, updating them on Megatron's exact words, he got an audio full of confusion as to the fact that they were trading. When did that happen? Belatedly, the seeker hurried to explain that they had laid down their arms for some alien "humans", First Aid cut in hurriedly, _Get out of there._

_ What?_

_ You heard me, get out of there! Hot Spot says to make a break for it, now!_

_ I already threw down my weapon!_

_ Leave it! Get back here now—!_

Before the seeker could do anything, he jumped when a ground bridge blasted open and Vehicons rushed out and circled them.

_Um . . . Too late. We're surrounded._

First Aid had worked himself into a tizzy at this point. Bit-Brain ignored him as well as he could, worry doing no good at this point as the bots with humans took protective stances around them and the Decepticons congregated around the Omega Lock.

"Now bear witness as a new era dawns on Cybertron!"

The seeker stood on his toes, trying to see around everyone as the Decepticons inserted the keys into their respective ports, a bright gold light flashing before a touch-oriented screen popped up, indicating Cybertron.

What in Primus's name was going on?

With a growing sense of rising irritation from being left out of the loop, helpless without knowledge, the seeker heard the Omega Lock power up, but a chill ran down his circuits when Megatron proclaimed, "Behold! The age of the Decepticons!"

_Uh, guys?_

_ What is it?_

_ I think we're fragged._

He jerked as a powerful laser beam shot out, massive and singing the air, shorting out all his communications as it shot out towards the edge of Polyhex. His optics widened when it hit one of the ravaged buildings, but—wait . . .

His round optics widened.

"By the Celestial Spires . . ." he breathed.

He could see the building moving. Shifting. Transforming. It drew up, pulling itself back together, rust and scorch marks falling away as it stood up with its former glory of the Golden Age of Cybertron, a landmark of gleaming silver among deteriorating gray.

_What . . . What is that? _He felt First Aid contact him again. _It's . . . so beautiful . . . What's going on? How did that happen? That beam practically hit us!_

The seeker shook his helm, too in awe to really just his jaw this time. His wings fanned slowly. _I . . . have no idea, but . . . I think this Omega Lock must be the way to revive Cybertron! Look—LOOK AT THAT!_

"You have what you want Megatron," Optimus's commanding voice brought the seeker out of his daydreams. He shifted, tapping his toes nervously. "This conflict is between Autobot and Decepticons. Allow me to return the humans to Earth!"

"Oh, I wouldn't recommend it," Megatron said. He turned to them. "They'll be far safer here. Is the space bridge locked on target?"

Starscream bowed. "As per your instructions, Lord Megatron."

The power to restore Cybertron, space bridges, magical weapons—it all sounded like fantasy, yet here he was, living it. Bit-Brain could hardly believe his audio receptors as he shifted restlessly from ped to ped.

"Excellent. Why rule only one world, when I could rule TWO?"

The seeker blinked. Then, he looked down on the humans.

Oh slot.

* * *

><p>Nightstalker jerked and yelped when the crash slammed into Earth so hard it knocked out all communications in one blast. The lights at the top of the silo jangled, and she jumped to her peds, wings fluttering in panic.<p>

Ratchet typed restlessly, calibrating and recalibrating, desperate to get the communications back up if this was a dire emergency. "Optimus, do you read? An unknown energy spike in Earth's atmosphere is crashing all my systems! Please tell me this is all in relation to the activation of the Omega Lock . . ."

Nightstalker backed up. "Ratchet, whatever it was crashed outside. I'm gonna go check it out!"

He whirled. "Oh no you don't! You're staying right here where it's safe!"

"I'll just be on top of the silo! I promise! I'll be all right, remember? The fight's on Cybertron, remember?'

It seemed the pressure of not knowing anything that was going on snapped the last of Ratchet's patience as he turned back to the blaring computers. "All right! Go! I'll be in here!"

Nightstalker nodded, hurrying to the other side and taking the lift up to the top of silo. Her wings fluttered as fast as her spark. So much weighed on this one mission. If something went wrong . . .

Her optics widened when she got to the top of the silo. She stared at the massive blue beam crashing into Earth, and the thing silhouetted inside it. Her peds walked her forward to the edge as she stared at the formation of this travesty, but she couldn't find her words to go back in to Ratchet, only stare in horror.

* * *

><p>So, cyberforming Earth wasn't a good thing, and killing all the indigenous life was worse. The seeker stared up in horror until Megatron spoke, jerking his attention back down.<p>

"What raw POWER! What shall I call my new domain?" and the warlord directed his attention to Optimus, a devilish glint taunting him. "New Kaon? Or perhaps, Gilded Earth!"

The humans were beside themselves. "No!"

"Leave our planet alone!"

The seeker tilted his head, looking towards the commander whose optics were the widest he had ever seen them as the Decepticons laughed and laughed. He shifted his weight; Optimus's optics narrowed. A narrow compartment in the seeker's right calf opened; Optimus drew his built-in blade.

The Autobot leader attacked, hacking down the Vehicon closest to him, and as he did so Bit-Brain let the catches release, springing a flail into his hand—and thumbing the gilded design on it—the spikes sprang free. Lunging forward, he smashed the flail into the closest Vehicon's face and bolted after Optimus who darted to his blade again. He could feel the Decepticons on his tail, so he dropped and skidded, the massive wave of energy from Optimus's blade crashing into and destroying three Vehicons in one blow.

He grabbed his sword as Optimus charged the Decepticons—the little seeker dodged the white bot that came running his way too, thinking to grab his weapon too. Instead of charging the generals, the little seeker rushed back to the bots that were more concerned about their alien human allies and strapped his sword to his hip and kept using his flail. He had just crushed in another skull when he saw it—Optimus, leaping towards the Omega Lock with his blade held high. With a blink and a grab of his sword, he picked up his sheath, turned on the shield—

A giant explosion ricocheted him backwards, leaving his audio receptors ringing shrilly at a high pitch and his optics recalibrating. Within seconds everything was reoriented, his shield thankfully having taken most of the blast while the Omega Lock burned around them.

_Are you okay? Oh Primus, are you okay? We're at the edge of Polyhex, we saw the blast! Primus scrap you, are you—_

It took him a moment to realize First Aid was aggressively talking to him through the bond. _I'm okay. I'm fine. Everyone's fine, unfortunately._ He jumped when a ground bridge blasted open—theirs. _Stay away! The 'Cons are fine, all generals, they'll crush you. I'll stick with Prime—got a bridge. Have to go—I'll be safe, trust me!_

_ No! No, don't you go, fly back to us—_

_ I've gotta go now, First Aid! Megatron would catch me! Retreat, I'll be fine, I'm with Prime! _He rushed to the edge of the bridge, saying, _Trust me, love you, I'll be safe—_

And then, he was through the bridge, and it felt like his entire world shifted out of joint. His contact with First Aid faded to a bare minimum, stretched beyond light years and billions of units in distance that couldn't be measured as he was suddenly jumped from Cybertron to Earth. Too far away to get actual words through, the little seeker could only faintly comfort his worried brother in the form of a feeling that seemed to take forever to travel from one end of the bond to the other.

"The children? What happened." a voice cut in.

* * *

><p>She heard it. She heard it all, on the open comm. link. A part of her died, really. But . . . She had never had a better life until she came to Earth. But with THAT sitting right there, she probably had a bigger problem than just the Omega Lock being destroyed.<p>

Finally, she mechanically brought her hand to her comm. link. "Guys? I think you need to come outside."

The Decepticon fortress stood huge, dark, ugly against the bright sky of Earth. She heard the bots come back up, and she whirled around, spying Cliffjumper and Bumblebee immediately. Nightstalker threw her arms around Bumblebee first, and then Cliffjumper, thankful to have them back before she turned back to stare at the Decepticon citadel with the rest of them.

"Megatron has managed to accomplish his first phase of the Cyberforming of Earth," she heard Optimus say. Ah, that made more sense. So did the fact that he put his new domain right here . . . in front of them. "The construction of his fortress."

"In Jasper Nevada," Fowler stated more than questioned, too stunned to really say more. "I don't get it! I've already had the town evacuated! Why here?"

The words stuck in Nightstalker's throat, but that was all right because Optimus said them for her:

"Because the Decepticons have discovered the location of our base."

Faintly, Nightstalker heard Megatron's voice carry over the silent dunes, over the sound of the _NEMESIS_'s engines. She shivered and shrank into Cliffjumper, fear clotting in her throat as she hid behind him. His hand tightened supportively on hers. "Our opportunity to revive Cybertron has been lost due to the treachery of Optimus Prime! But from our new fortress of New Kaon, we will instead seize control of THIS world! DECEPTICONS! TRANSFORM AND RISE UP!"

With a growing sense of horror, Nightstalker watched as Starscream took off, leading a new battalion of elite silver seekers, all rising up like a silver wave before they crashed over them with a flurry of laser fire. Nightstalker cried out and flinched down behind Cliffjumper as the barrage began to take place, Insecticons flying out too, the sheer numbers overwhelming them.

"You wanna fight like that, eh?" Nightstalker looked up to the voice she had never heard before, yet his dabble of an accent had her spark reeling. She saw a deep blue seeker for a nanoclick before he took off, darting out into the thick of the fray, and her optics widened at the brace he had on his right wing.

They held their own for not even a minute before Optimus bellowed, "Autobots! Into the base!"

Nightstalker flinched and ducked down immediately, cowering behind Cliffjumper as the elevator took them down. He panted, brushing off a faint leak on his shoulder before his optics jumped around. The walls rumbled around them as he pulled her to his feet. "Hey, where's the hitchhiker?"

"He went off into the middle of that with Fowler!" Bulkhead growled. "They're gonna get themselves killed!"

As they filed out into the silo, Nightstalker pulled Cliffjumper aside in the medical area, snatching up Ratchet's welder to patch up the leak.

"The Decepticons have invaded Jasper," Optimus was answering Ratchet and Jack's questions.

"And Fowler and the hitchhiker seem to think they can hold them off!"

When Nightstalker finished the easy patch job, Cliffjumper's hand cupped the side of her cheek, holding her there to look him in the optics. "You okay?" he whispered to her, seeming oblivious to the roof shaking and dust falling around them.

Nightstalker took a deep in cycle, calming her wired nerves before setting the welder aside. "Y-yeah," she whispered just as quietly back. She pressed her helm into his though, drawing his strength and fluttering her wings. "I just . . . Yeah."

His strong arms wrapped around her, giving her that feeling of being embraced in a shield of protection. He pressed a kiss to her audio receptor, murmuring in the middle of the hell tumbling around them, "It's gonna be all right." His deep voice rumbled in her audio receptors, comforting her. "We'll be okay. We've been through pinches than this. And besides, Megatron's gonna regret it if he gets too close to you."

Nightstalker nodded, taking a deep breath of Cliffjumper's scent before she heard Optimus say, "Ratchet, prepare to bridge everyone out of here!"

Both Nightstalker and Cliffjumper looked up in shock as Ratchet echoed weakly, "We're . . . ABANDONING the base?"

Optimus turned. "The base is lost. Wheeljack, Agent Fowler, and our mysterious ally can only buy us time to escape! Bumblebee, Rafael, you will depart first."

With a slash of panic, Nightstalker bolted across the base to them as Bumblebee chirped, holding out his hand and letting Raf jump into his palm. She slammed into his chest, burying her face into his chassis, feeling like the younger sister of the relationship again instead of the older sister.

Little tears beaded in her optics. Bumblebee squeezed her tight, saying, *It's gonna be all right, Nightstalker. We'll be fine and careful, I promise*

Nightstalker nodded, a hitching cycle filtering out as she nuzzled Raf before rasping, "Y-Yeah. You two be careful, all right?"

Raf nodded, and though his little face was white with fear, said strongly, "We will. You be too. I promise we'll see each other again."

She felt her spark shatter to tiny little pieces as they moved to head out. She hugged Bulkhead and Miko, hugged Arcee so tight the warrior thought she would pop her head off and said her goodbyes to Jack and Smokescreen, leaving no one left out. As she frantically latched her arms around Ratchet's waist, he activated the bridge for Miko and Bulkhead, picking her up and hugging her back.

"I want you to go with Cliffjumper," he said to her. Nightstalker looked up, opening her mouth to argue what Optimus's orders had been, but Ratchet shook his head, interrupting sharply, "No! I—I KNOW what he said, but this is what I'm saying. You're still too shaken from Megatron's rape, you don't have the fighting skills yet, and you're still not cleared to transform for a week. I want Cliffjumper to look after you, got it?" He looked up and past her, obviously getting a nod from him before pinning his optics back to Nightstalker. "You be CAREFUL," he stressed on a raw whisper. He absently activated the bridge for Jack and Arcee before wrapping his arms around her fully, squeezing her optics out. "Stay alive."

Little tears seeped from the edges of her optics before she could stop it. She nodded, whispering back, "I won't lose another father."

Ratchet had to let her go then, setting their coordinates, and he looked back with worried optics. Nightstalker bit her bottom lip, looking back at him, possibly for the last time. Then, with Cliffjumper taking her hand, they ran through the ground bridge.

* * *

><p>The Autobot hitchhiker zipped through the sky, gunning down whom he could, succeeding in making some mechs crash with his stun blasters while others were high enough to reorient themselves before they hit the ground. He covered the clunky little helicopter as best he could, but he couldn't do anything against the Insecticons unless he landed on them and shredded his sword through their wings. The seeker was thankful for the Autobot ship that joined them, but with the <em>NEMESIS<em> advancing and the ship shot down by Starscream, he knew that was it.

Breathing in sharp in takes, the little seeker landed on one of the jagged wings of the _NEMESIS_, feeling the crackle in the air of the charge of its laser. His spark panicked for a moment as he looked down on the top of the base, but then realized that they wouldn't have to make a break for it on wheels—they had a space bridge. They could get anywhere they needed to. He searched for the little helicopter with the human organic, and he saw it hovering far off, not picked off because it wasn't worth the trouble. Some seekers still hovered far away, looking for him, but they soon returned to the ship.

It took him one second to realize why they had retreated into the ship.

In the next, the world exploded.

The powerful laser beam tore through the top of the Autobot base, shredding through it to the ground, and the resulting blast at such a close range on the outside threw the seeker back, slamming him into the side of the _NEMESIS_'s hull before he collapsed on the wing, heat scorching over his circuits.

He blacked out for an instant before his optics flickered back online full of hazy fuzz, and his audio receptors rang at such a shrill pitch he couldn't hear anything. With a shaking hand, he pushed himself up, in cycles coughing on thick smoke, and when his optics recalibrated again, saw billows of heavy black clouds rolling up from the smoldering base, fire flickering with a deadly light.

_No one could have survived that._

Megatron and Starscream were down there. Hearing slowly came back to him, and with it, a different sight:

Something white moving in the wreckage.

Stumbling to his peds, he took off and went straight to him, and when he landed, was met with a blaster.

"Friendly!" he hissed above the crackle of the fire. "Friendly!"

The bot grunted and picked up—his spark fell to the pits of his stomach.

"Cybertron below me . . ."

The little seeker hurried to help drag the devastated and unconscious Optimus Prime with him, names beyond use at this point. By putting a hand on the white bot, he used the Phase Shifter to move them easily through the wreckage. They dragged the leader's limp, heavy body, going through canyon walls, going down slopes, moving deeper and deeper. Finally, they came into a wider cave, and of unspoken agreement, it was far enough. They both laid the mortally wounded Prime as comfortable as possible against the rocks.

He stirred, trying to move. The white bot's hand shot out and gently touched his chassis. "You're hurt," he told him unnecessarily. "But you probably look way worse than you feel."

The seeker's wings fluttered as he listened to the labored, thin in cycles of the Prime. His head lolled towards his voice, a garbled mumble catching on his lips.

"No, don't move or talk," the white bot said hurriedly. "Just . . . power down. Get your strength back. I got you covered."

Almost immediately those flickering optics closed. A pause in which both mechs could only look at him, and then the seeker whispered, "That's not good enough."

The white bot looked up at him. "What?"

The seeker reached into his subspace, pulling out a standard medical field kit. The bot's optics widened. "Use this," the seeker said. Opening it, he took the spare welder, some electrical tape, and a few clamps. He left the rest, the bulk of it for them. "I'm going."

The white bot leapt to his feet. "What? You saw what happened out there! We've got to stick together right now. You can't do any good right now."

The seeker shook his helm. "No. What I can do is swipe some energon for you and Optimus so you guys don't run dry—espionage is my specialty. I'll grab some from the Decepticons, and then, I'll go scouting for the others. Since I'm a flier, I'll spot them easier, get us back together quicker. Besides, I'd feel . . . confined in here; seekers aren't known for underground, cramped spaces. Sound like a plan?"

The white bot nodded. He started to go before he realized he needed the Phase Shifter to get out, and the white bot grabbed him by his cripple wing supported by his brace. He tossed him the Phase Shifter. "My name's Smokescreen. You?"

"Nightflier." He shrugged. "Or, Fli-Ni, for short."

Nothing else was said. With a quick crash course in how to use the Shifter, Nightflier ran back out. His wide blue optics narrowed at the Decepticon citadel of New Kaon. He could hear Starscream and Megatron roaring about not finding any bodies.

He set out, an enigmatic apparition vanishing in the night.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**SURPRISE!**

**First off, if you're wondering, NO Smokescreen did NOT realize he was Nightstalker's brother! He doesn't even know she has a brother! poor little ignorant Smokescreen, and Optimus was out cold, so no one knows yet!**  
><strong>Second, if you're wondering, NO Fli-Ni is not spark mates with First Aid, they're BROTHERS through a fraternal bond. I think I mentioned that.<strong>

**Third! I wanted to make sure to characterize Fli-Ni well since this is debut chapter. So, you know his function is espionage, he's a Protectobot, fraternal bond with First Aid, and plays will drillers for fun though he takes himself quite serious on missions. Has a sense of honor like his father, but seems to be a little free spirited. He's taller than Arcee, shorter then Bumblebee. Deep voice like his father.**

**I especially wanted to show the difference in the way he talks. He uses "slot" the way our bots would use "scrap" and uses euphemisms like "By the Celestial Spires" and "Cybertron below me" which will be popping up more and more as I write him.**  
><strong>I also wanted to emphasize his different style of fighting. A cross between the typical soldier's fighting and an ill-learned Circuit-Su, so he's a bit graceful, but with a sting. Goes for the weak spots and is defensive, falls back rather than charges.<strong>

**YES this has a few little spoilers for season 3, but hey, I had to put Fli-Ni where I needed him, and he's gonna be a little all over the place if I'm not for certain...**

**Sad news. Fraternizing has now hit a standstill until I am comfortable with where I am going with this in regards to season 3. I'll need more episodes, thus, I'll be waiting a while, thus, updates are going to stop and it's going to be sad! (cause i have no idea where I'm going with this now, ffft)**

**Fli-Ni will have an art coming soon, courteousy of a good friend on DevArt**  
><strong>On another note... HOW MUCH DID I SURPRISE YOU? :D<strong>


	50. Broken Bonds

**Author's Note:**

**Know it's been a long time, but it's an extra long chapter! :) I'm still uncertain where I'm going with this other than one plot point. But. Hey. I'll stick it out on a limb and figure it out.**

**Now, when you review, I'd love to hear something about all 3 parts of this chapter. Cause I know you guys will flail at the end and scream and forget all about talking about the two beginning parts ;) **

* * *

><p>Slow, heavy breaths rattled in and out of his systems. Emergency diagnostics filled his optics. Wetness spread down into the dirt. It stuck gritty to his mutilated chassis. He rested face first in the dust of the Earth.<p>

He waited for death. He didn't know why he was alive. With the culmination of the past events, he was certain it should have killed him.

A soft voice whispered to him on the winds. His audios perked to the sound. It was a song, dancing through the leafy treetops, sliding down the waterfalls of sun rays, and brushing its way across his despairing countenance.

_. . . innocence . . . instinct . . ._

Agony pulsed in his body with every beat of his spark. He tried to turn his helm away, trying to ignore the call. At this point, he simply wanted to perish. To die. Free from this life.

_. . . needs you and me . . . escape . . . the ghost of you and me . . ._

Emergency signals flashed before his optics.

**Energon levels: 10% Critical! Shutdown imminent!**

Against his will, in his last moments, he was curious. He strained his optics back open, looking through the maze of trees, the dew of morning settled on his body. Bright blue energon stained the ground and continued to pour out of him as he searched the distance.

_Who are you?_

Laughter. He was certain he heard it. It sounded too much like Nightstalker. It sounded too much like the ghost of a femme he once knew.

_How do we know? Why we are here? Why we are bound to disappear?_

His once strong body was weak. He couldn't lift himself to response to the voice's questions. He couldn't dare answer them. He didn't know how.

**Energon levels: 9% Critical! Shutdown imminent!**

The voice came back louder, a mournful tone.

_Don't leave me! Come to me! Yes, die. No, your duty! What need do you have here? Haha, come with me, and we'll be, in a world of pure imagination—our own ordinary world!_

His vents turned tight at the sudden quick speaking that bounced around the skies above him, and the wind picked up, gusting through the area. Leave whipped around him. He lied at nature's mercy until the words died and the wind died.

Who was it? Did he dare think he knew? It hurt too much to think. But what was she telling him? Die? Live? She wasn't clear. She was talking in riddles, and he didn't have the strength to read between the lines.

The spark break spread. It clawed. It infected. It ruined. His remaining strength was spent on a despairing moan dragged from the depths of his soul.

_I want to die._

The voice came back swiftly, cheerful this time.

_No you don't!_

He ignored her.

She cajoled to him.

_Dreadwing! Dreadwing! Don't ignore me, Dreadwing! Dreads! I know you can hear me! C'mon, let me see those pretty red optics! Look at those cute wings! Perk those wings up pretty for me, let me see them. Please? Come on, we're all alone! Let me see! Just for me? Please?_

**Energon levels: 8% Critical! Shutdown imminent!**

She patronized him. With a great effort, for some unknown reason, Dreadwing found himself lifting his wings up, flaring them wide, showing them to a nonexistent being.

_That's it. Now those pretty optics? Pretty please? You might see mine._

Bittersweet longing filled his spark. He knew she couldn't be there. He was alive and she was dead. There was no more to consider than that. Or perhaps, he was caught somewhere in a limbo he couldn't escape?

Against his will, Dreadwing found himself doing the hopeless and opening his optics again.

His spark seized.

His servo slid across the ground. Reaching. Reaching.

"A-Ampere . . ."

She always said they would meet again.

His breath was barely a crack. Her ghostly figure twirled and laughed. She smiled. Her optics twinkled. She stopped. Her smile faded.

_Listen to me._

**Energon levels: 7% Critical! Shutdown imminent!**

He wanted to tell her he was. He was. With all his spark. He was going to be with her again. After so long, after such pointless struggle . . . he welcomed death's embrace.

_No. You are needed here._

As a messenger angel of her deliverance she sent him, a figure walked straight through her, dissipating her image. Dreadwing's spark cried out for her when red and white replaced it. Peds came to stand before his line of sight. For the longest, there was no more movement than that.

He despaired.

_Don't leave me . . . Please . . . Not again . . ._

Soft laughter. The kind she husked when she was tired. This time, weighted down with the world and not sleep.

_You must live . . . Hold on to him . . . Never let go . . ._

His spark howled in frustration and anger. She was leaving him. She was drifting. He couldn't let her go again, he had to follow her.

_Not here. Not now. Your time will come, as all will until all are one._

Finally, a pair of knees knelt into his sight along with the mutterings of an incredibly put-off medic.

" . . . better be happy you're her step-father or Primus knows I would let you leak to your death right here and now. Don't deserve to live after everything you've done, but if Nightstalker thought there was something salvageable in you then I have to fragging save your sorry aft no matter how much I'd rather take it . . ." He felt servos beginning their work on him with his limited tool. "A clean hit, of course. Oddly, your own weapon. But I wouldn't doubt you trying to escape with something as weak as suicide. I ought to just let you die! Let you finish what you started! But no, I'm doing this for Nightstalker. So you better be grateful to her that she cared about you even when you didn't! Fragging, ungrateful Decepticon trash . . ."

**Energon levels: 6% Critical! Shutdown imminent!**

_I'll always be with you._

Dreadwing groaned, trying to reach her and finding nothingness. She faded away, her spirit gone as abruptly as it had come. Her voice lingered.

_Let go of me . . . All I'm reaching for . . . All the pieces left behind . . . Come together._

The Autobot CMO dug deep in the gaping wound. Dreadwing thought he heard himself scream.

Tears blurred. She was gone. She was gone. She was gone . . .

_What was lost is now again found. Treasured joy . . . Sorrow's laughter . . . Tragedy . . . Lost . . ._

Fluid lines were clamped down. The energon leaks were slowing. Clamps meant for Optimus, should the medic have found him. And he never did.

_Will you just let it all burn down? Will you love . . . when it all burns down . . . ?_

She was drifting further away. He was losing her voice in the breeze that stole her away. His spark bled.

_This light will never die . . . Sparks . . . come alive. Till all are one . . ._

He was dead. Broken. He couldn't be fixed.

_Faithfulness . . . Become whole again . . . He needs you . . . and you . . . him . . ._

**Energon levels: 5% Critical! Forcing emergency stasis.**

He panicked, terrified of the darkness though it had once been what he pined for.

_Hold me . . . until the fear leaves me . . ._

A cool, soothing spirit swept over him, settling around him as a shroud of peace.

_I am here, Love . . . Be brave . . . for more than just yourself . . . His destiny . . ._

For a moment, Dreadwing truly heard her words. Who was this person she kept speaking of? What was he supposed to do for him? Who . . . was he? Did he dare . . . stay alive for him?

The darkness pressed in, swallowing him whole.

* * *

><p>Nightstalker trembled.<p>

"Cliffjumper? I'm scared."

His hand tightened on hers.

"Don't be. I'm right here."

"Not of the dark, stupid!"

"I didn't say you were afraid of the dark."

"Then you know what I'm afraid of!"

There was a pause.

"Do I?"

"Cliff—Cliff, what if something happened to the others? What if Megatron got them, or—or—or what if—"

"Hey, hey," and he finally stopped their walking, turning her to him and taking her shoulders. He gave her a little shake. "Easy. Calm it down, Nights, we're all gonna be all right."

Hot tears beaded her optics in the night. "B-But—What if something happens? Cliff, we don't KNOW if the others are all right! What if the Decepticons got them? We don't know it they're alive, we could be all that's left!"

Cliffjumper shushed her again, moonlight filtering through the leafy treetops and shadowed glints falling across their frames. "Nights, seriously. No matter what's happened, we can't panic. We just gotta keep heading east—it's all we've got to work on. Where else would we all rendezvous? Back to the base is all we've got."

Though scared tears slipped down her face, Nightstalker took a deep breath and nodded, roughly scrubbing them away. He was right. Now wasn't a time to be weak. She had to be strong . . . if not for any other reason than to keep moving and hope the others were all right.

"You all right?"

Nightstalker nodded, leaning into him. "Y-Yeah . . . Just worried."

"I know. I bet they are too."

They stood for a moment before Cliffjumper tugged them along. "C'mon. We need to keep moving while we can. Daylight will be here before we know it."

Nightstalker nodded, falling in step with him. They had judged themselves to be in deep Tennessee, and they continuously headed east. The first night and Nightstalker was already breaking down—she knew better, but the trauma was still so fresh in her mind. Cliffjumper had immediately deigned that they could only travel at night when there were less humans about and less chance of them getting spotted. The night also provided cover in case any Decepticon seekers were out searching for Autobot survivors.

They walked until morning. It was then, with the sun rising, that Cliffjumper brought them in a dense clump of trees and ducked beneath them with her, pulling her down in his lap and brought his arms around her. He vented softly.

"Guess we might as well recharge."

"I don't want to."

He nodded at her flat response, almost expecting it. She was afraid of nightmares. Instead of pursuing the point, he almost launched into another interesting story until he remembered—

"Hey. Did you ever figure out what Dreadwing's little gift was?"

Nightstalker paused. "Um . . . No."

Cliffjumper grinned and relaxed back. "Well, don't you think this might be a good time and way to distract yourself?"

Nightstalker nodded. She paused before she opened the file and offered her wrist. "Want to watch with me?"

Cliffjumper smile broadly, leaning up with animation and nuzzling their helms. "Thought you'd never ask!" He connected their linking ports so he could watch the file with her, and Nightstalker opened it. The video flickered a second before it showed Dreadwing, alone, in a dim room, and judging by the berth he sat upon, his berth room.

He didn't say anything for a long moment. It was so quiet she could hear the vents cycling in and out of his frame. Finally, he said abruptly,

"Depending on your master, your life was either miserable or detestable as a gladiator."

Nightstalker blinked, having expected anything but that from the mech. He shook his head. "Skyquake and I had a master that made our lives miserable with all the killing. A step up from others who would contemplate the best way to kill themselves or throw away their lives in the ring." The deep blue seeker's wings tilted, and he cast his face to the side, rubbing a hand behind his neck. He leant heavily on his knees.

"Our master was pleased with us. He managed to buy us both, powerful twins, and so his income on our wins made him very rich." Dreadwing's lip curled slightly. "He wanted to REWARD us. He used a pittance of the credits he earned through us to buy whores for us to interface with—still better than the gladiators who didn't earn enough for their masters and instead their bodies were sold to the glitches of the higher class."

Cliffjumper, holding Nightstalker, tightened his arms. "I didn't know all that went on," he whispered with a pitiful shake of his head. Nightstalker didn't respond, riveted by the video feed.

Dreadwing gave a bitter laugh. "Skyquake had no qualms with it. He said better something that felt good in life than nothing at all. He eagerly accepted each femme our master offered." He paused. "Not such with I. For the longest, I refused, not thinking it honorable. It was finally one day that my brother agreed with me, but he also countered my thoughts with the question of if anything in these pits were honorable. That night, I took my master's offer of a femme to pleasure myself with."

He paused for a long moment. He dipped his helm, rubbing at his face and venting sharply before he admitted, "She was your mother, Nightstalker," he finally said quietly. He shook his head again. "She came to me, so tiny that at first glance I was afraid I would smother her. Her silver paint job was old, scratchy and faded, but she was well kempt, taking pride in her looks. She looked . . . so much like you . . ."

Dreadwing paused again before he sat up, looking away from the camera recording him. "I could tell by first glance that she did not feel good. Her optics flickered, and she seemed to waver a little where she stood. I told her to sit on the berth, and she did so immediately. When I pressed what was the matter, she eventually confessed she thought her processor had gotten her sick with a computer worm. It was a common ailment of the lower class. Something that would most likely flush itself out overnight with a proper recharge."

Dreadwing shifted again in the video feed, a leg jiggling for a second before resting. "I was not aroused at the thought of taking a femme with a processor ache, and my honorable streak would not let me. Instead, I asked for her name. She asked what did it matter—she thought I just wanted a good frag, and she just needed the money. I told her not while she was sick, and as far as my master knew, I would keep her here all night under the guise that I had her for my personal desires and she could simply power down and let the processor worm pass.

"So she told me her name was Ampere. She thanked me for my kindness, and I allowed her to sleep on my berth, and I on the floor. She asked why a gentlemanly bot like myself was a gladiator. I told her it was not my choice. Primus had forsaken my birth from the Well of All Sparks and designated me a gladiator. I had been here since the day I crawled from the Well of All Sparks, and I would be here until my dying day. I asked why a nice femme like herself was selling herself. She told me she used to tally the dead gladiators and designate the new ones. One day, a power surge overloaded the computer she was working at, and it had fried part of her processor. Her function was corrupt, and she could no longer do what she was designated. She was thrown out on the streets, and so she picked up the only way to make money that she could." His fist tightened. "So she sold her body to make enough credits to live on."

Dreadwing paused, tight vents cycling in and out of him with indignation of where their lives had forced them to be. "We didn't speak any more that night. She pitied me, and I pitied her. Come morning, I sent her away. She was paid by my master, and he laughed, amused that I had kept her all night. Said I must have slagged her good. My brother laughed too, chiding me on my chastity for so long, but I could tell in his optics and spark he did not believe me. He knew I had not taken her, but did not press the point."

Nightstalker watched impassively, feeling a strange sense of want to know but also disappointment at all she heard. So her mother really had been nothing but a glitch . . . a whore selling her own body just to make it. It was pitiful. Dreadwing too, just another gladiator to die in the pits.

The Decepticon commander rolled his neck, optics darkening in remembrance. "So when I expressed an interest in her, my master promised to bring her back since I liked her so much. Because my brother had his favorites, my master did not question it, though many times he did suggest I take a different femme." Dreadwing shook his head. "I refused. I had found the one I was curious about.

"The second night she came to me, she said she was well. She wanted to know if I would like to interface with her this night." His vocals choked for a moment, and he cleared them, husking, "She promised she would be good to me, said she was good at what she did now. She received a good amount of credits for her work, and she had almost saved up enough money to buy herself a new silver paint job. Her words . . . saddened me. So I instead asked if she wanted to. Her blue optics laughed at me. She told me she didn't know—I was such a handsome mech that she might not be able to keep her servos off."

A rueful laugh crossed Dreadwing's lips. He shook his head, lips unwillingly curving up, "That was the first night I laughed because I was happy and not bitter. So we sat and we talked again, and I was quickly enlightened to the fact that she could make light of any situation and laugh in the face of the darkest despair. Her light empowered me. That morning, I did not want to see her go."

Nightstalker leaned back into Cliffjumper's arms, cuddling beneath his helm. "They're romantic," she whispered softly, amazed she had the spark for a sappy love story.

He nuzzled her helm, dropping a kiss on her audio receptor. "And tragic."

There was a slight lull in Dreadwing's confession before the Decepticon commander leaned back and looked to the ceiling. "She kept coming back to me. When I asked her why, she laughed and said maybe it was because with me she didn't have to work a bit and still got paid." His optics turned wistful. "She teased me much. She always tried to get me to smile. She worried about me being in the ring so much, but I tried to ease her worry. It was not as if I could change what my servitude was. And so she was grateful every night to see me alive." He paused. A servo passed over his face. "The nights were I was wounded . . . She refused to take the berth. Only when I was in good health would she sleep on the berth and I, on the floor.

"We talked much. There was not much in our past—hers, mundane, and mine, barbarous. It was quickly established what we were and why and how we came to be in our positions. Ampere decided one night not to dwell on the past and instead asked me to look to the future. And so we spoke of the future oft, talking about what we would do. Ampere said she would live in Crystal City. When I asked where it was, what it looked like, she told me. It was nothing like I had ever seen. Her skills had been bought by a high class mech at one point who lived in Crystal City, and he requested she come to his place. She said it was the most beautiful city she had ever seen. When I did not know where I wanted to live, never having been outside of the pits, I said anywhere but Kaon. She promised Crystal City would be a good place to live for me. She said that would be better, that way, we could see each other often." His hand curled into a fist. His fist suddenly slammed to the edge of the berth with such force the sound rocketed out and made Nightstalker jump. He turned his face away, seething.

"After her death . . . I was part of the Decepticon onslaught that tore it down."

He shook for a moment in his passions, refusing to look at the screen. "I hated and loved the place. I hated it because it reminded me of her. I loved it because we had sunk our future into the city, even before we knew we had a future." His voice turned ragged, harsh. "I tore it down because I had no future without her."

Cliffjumper's arms tightened around Nightstalker. She could tell he was biting his glossia, trying not to comment on everything in that chatty way of his so she could listen to Dreadwing more. She felt her spark sinking. He should have lived. If he hadn't been so stubborn . . . He could have been her step-father. She could have loved him.

But . . . maybe he could have never loved her.

"She was adventurous," Dreadwing finally said quietly. "She had a free-spirit, and though she had no place to call her own for recharge each night, she enjoyed her freedom to roam. She loved to fly, and if she didn't have to watch how much energon she burned by doing so, she said she would fly all the time if she could. She pitied me because I never truly had the chance to stretch my wings except for brief flights in battle. She detailed the flights, told me what it was like, promised that I would like flying above Crystal City and see it sparkle in the sunlight or glow in the moonlight. She wished she could take me out, show me the world, because it was all so different and pretty and bright compared to the pits. She had so many ideas, so much planned for the future, and she was always so vibrant." Dreadwing dropped his helm, and his wings sank. He stared down at the palms of his servos. "She would hold my hands," he whispered quietly, "as she told me about it all. Said she would be rich enough to buy all the energon she wanted, rich enough for a house on the highest hilltop, rich enough to paint herself in all the colors of the world until she glowed as bright as a sunspot." Tears pricked Nightstalker's optics at his emotional confession. He hands clenched. She witnessed his jaw grind and his optics squeeze shut. "Her optics glowed so bright. She always was so vibrant. So excited. She said she would fall in love with a scientist that way he would provide for her and she could enjoy her freedom."

He paused. He gave a bitter laugh, choking on the residue of sentimental memories. "When I demanded to know why a scientist—were mechs like gladiators too low for her? She laughed, telling me no. They were just too intense, and she couldn't handle that intensity. A little quiet scientist was just right for her, let her have her freedom, make her rich, and share all her dreams with. She said a scientist would be easy to handle."

He shifted, rubbing the side of his temples. His deep blue wings tipped up. "I started caring about her then, when I became jealous over a non-existent scientist. I didn't realize it then; I was just . . . jealous. It was also when my brother finally confronted me about Ampere. He said it wasn't a good idea to associate myself with her. He said it was a relationship that would only beget sparkache. He said it was too dangerous with the kind of life we led, but I refused. I wanted to see her." Dreadwing shook his head, expelling a heavy vent. "Skyquake didn't press the issue hard. I think it was because he saw that I was probably the happiest in my lifetime since she came into my life."

Dreadwing sighed again. "She fluttered her wings when she was nervous, or scared. She had the most infectious laugh. She fidgeted so much, tapping her peds, twiddling her thumbs, jiggling her leg; sometimes I would pin her to the berth just to get her to stop. She always wanted to sit criss-cross and jiggle her knees. She would move around the room and show her stories with movement and hand signs. She always stood for what she believed in, and she admired my honorable side. She was outgoing, had a powerful personality, and talked differently than most—a lower caste sort of slang, lots of 'Cybertron below me' and 'by the Celestial Spires' and 'slot'. She would sing, and pretend she knew how to dance. She had a spot between her wings that I could massage and she would all but melt into the berth it felt so good. She wore her spark on her sleeve." Those melancholy red optics dropped to his hands.

"She lived like she had nothing left to lose . . .

"I fought harder in the pits to win. I think that was why, even if he suspected, my master never complained. My brother and I brought in steady credits if he kept us happy, and if something as cheap as whores could do it, he was fine with whatever we did.

"One day, Ampere surprised me. She came in with a gleaming new paintjob." Dreadwing gave a soft laugh, shaking his head. "She was beautiful. I had never seen such silver glitter so beautifully. She said she was just as silver as the moon. When I said I had never seen Cybertron's moon, she said it looked something like this, and she curled herself into a ball. Of course, she looked ridiculous with her wings stuck up, so we had a good laugh."

His optics softened. "The days passed. We grew closer and closer. We lived in the fantasy of our future until, one day, Ampere confessed she couldn't envision her future without me." He stopped. Nightstalker waited impatiently in the lull of silence, grasping Cliffjumper's hands tightly. "I . . . didn't know how to take her words," Dreadwing murmured. "The only one that had loved me before was my brother. I myself did not even realize I was in love with her. I didn't have a word for it. I asked her what she meant, and she . . . She told me she loved me." His in cycles hitched. He stood abruptly, turning away from the screen, servos clamping down on his hips. "She said . . . she didn't want to live her life without me. She wanted to walk into her future with ME."

The Decepticon commander vented sharply in remembrance of the night, passing a shaking servo over his face. "She told me . . . she did not love me because she wanted me, or could not have me. She said it had nothing to do with her. She said she loved who I was, what I did, what I tried. She had seen my kindness and my strength. She had seen the best and worst of me. She understood with perfect clarity exactly who I was." His shoulders slumped, and he looked away from the camera, whispering, "That was why she loved me."

There was a long pause. Nightstalker blinked back her tears and she felt Cliffjumper's arms tighten around her. He nuzzled her, burying his face into the nape of her neck. It took Dreadwing a moment to collect himself.

"After she confessed her love to me, I realized that my affections towards her were something more. That was the night I made love to her for the first time." He looked down at his hands before he took a shuddering breath, exhaling all the heat from his body. "She gave me her spark. Mine, to her. We connected, and everything I knew about her became my reality, everything, all I could feel . . ." His hands shook. His jaw twitched. Wetness stung his optics. "Her first words over the bond . . . Whether it was a question or a statement or both . . .

_"What wondrous love is this . . ."_

* * *

><p>"What wondrous planet IS this?"<p>

Swiping the energon from the Decepticons had been easy as cake. Giving it to Smokescreen and Optimus had been a pleasure, and then, Nightflier had taken off across this planet "Earth" to see if he could find any Autobots.

Unfortunately, he had gotten distracted.

Currently, he was on his hands and knees, peering curiously at a deer, looking at the four legged creature with just as much curiosity as it did him. His wings fanned; the deer's ears twitched. He blinked; it blinked. That a creature could stand so still was amazing, but he made the mistake of trying to move closer to it.

The deer bolted.

Nightflier jolted to his peds, calling out, "Wait! I didn't mean to scare you!"

But the deer was long gone, and he knew pursuing it would only make it more scared. Instead, with a resigned sigh, he let it go and began to tromp on. But his optics kept catching the sight of all the animals. He sneaked up on bird nests, discovered a bee hive (that did not agree with him), and watched his step to see the bunnies dart from beneath his peds.

It took him the better half of the hour to realize he needed to get a move on.

He moved with purpose though he still walked, looking at all the wildlife with the most insatiable curiosity. Periodically his wings would catch a tree branch or two and force him to stop and free himself.

It was about midday when he heard it. The screaming.

Nightflier froze, turning his head towards the sounds. That wasn't good. He bolted off in that direction, trying not to make too much noise in the forest but not managing that well as branches cracked beneath his peds and the branches slapped at his metal. Still, his cover wasn't blown as he approached the edge of the forest, and he peered out and down the hill, seeing a tiny little human settlement under siege by the Deceptions. Leading them was the scrawny, lady-legged and stiletto heeled Starscream. Buildings were burning, humans were scattering, and if Nightflier had ever seen a group of innocents attacked before, this was it.

He gritted his teeth. The Vehicons were trashing the place, tearing it down, razing it down to nothing. His optics flickered with the remembrance of a similar scene, and his fists tightened. He wouldn't stand for this. He was NOT going to sit back and let innocents be slaughtered.

He jumped, transforming and shooting himself over to the town. Flying low and above, he shot two Vehicons harassing some fleeing humans, and he transformed, digging his blade into the back of one's neck. He whirled to another, slitting his throat before the other had even hit the ground, glitching madly as it tried to recalibrate its systems.

Starscream's lip sneered at him. His optics flicked to the Apex Armor that the seeker held in his grip. "Well well well, if it isn't an Autobot."

Some of the humans still fled. Most crouched in the buildings and beneath awnings, too scared to move. Nightflier casually kicked the fallen Vehicon, thruster lighting on and burning up the 'Con's optic. The Vehicon shrieked.

"Now Starscream, this isn't too nice what you're doing here."

"Oh it's not?" Starscream said with heavy sarcasm. Nightflier lashed his scabbard to his arm, turning on the shield and flipping his sword several times as he walked forward some, noting three Vehicons scattered to his left and guns drawn. He still had the whip he had used against the driller, and he pondered if he could use it, thinking of the best way to use all his resources to his advantage. Starscream flicked his crow-claw-like servos. "These filthy humans made their nest on top of a very large energon deposit. I am simply moving them out of the way."

Two flanked Starscream. Four more on his right, and two from the rear. The only cover was the buildings, but the civilians took cover behind those. His optics flicked over the ground. A large pickup truck, a van, and a car on his right. Two more cars on his left, all non-sentient.

"And I can't allow you to walk your pretty little femme heels all over these people."

Electrical lines on both sides of the street. Civilians . . . everywhere. Great. THAT made it easy.

Starscream snarled at the insult, wings flaring as if to make himself more intimidating. "You stuck your nose into the wrong place, little Autobot. We've got you right where we want you."

Nightflier cast a couple blatant and uncaring looks around. He nodded, shrugging his shoulder. "I can see that," he said, deep voice belying the size of his small frame. "You have me surrounded. Not that it's going to help you any."

His spark beat a mile a minute in his chassis. This was risky. No, no this was downright stupid. First Aid would blow a gasket if he could see him now.

Starscream just laughed at him. "You Autobots are all the same," he said, and he pointedly lifted his wrist-mounted rocket to the nearest human building. Screams and cries of terror, and Nightflier stiffened slightly when he could see the small organics cowering beneath the awning. Starscream hiked up a cocky brow with a sneer. "What say you, Autobot? What will you do if I kill them?"

Nightflier's optics pinned to the scared humans for a second before he called the bluff. He shrugged a shoulder. "Attack you, of course—but that doesn't matter because I'm going to attack you no matter whom you kill. Unfortunately, you'll have just wasted a rocket which I'm quite sure you'd rather save it for me." He shrugged again. "Unless, of course, I'm wrong. I just didn't think you'd want organic blood splattered all over you."

A loud cry of, "Are you on our side or not!" rang out, making Starscream laugh. He lowered his wrist with a flick of his fingers. "Well of course I'm not going to get their filth on me," he said. "You, however, fell right into our trap. After all, what Autobot, in hiding or not, could stand by and watch humans get harmed? It was bound to draw one of you out for easy pickings." Nightflier's gaze flattened, and his battle mask slid into place.

Starscream's lip sneered. "I killed you once before, and I'll do it again!"

Nightflier's brow cocked. "I know you personally or something?" he finally asked.

A slow, loud laugh fell from Starscream with such intensity that he hunched over before dramatically wiping an optic. "You really don't know?" he said with a dark leer. "What dramatic irony!" and he laughed again, making Nightflier's protoform prickle. Starscream's lip curled, and his optics glinted. "Well, this just became more fun." He pointed his fingers. "Destroy him!"

Nightflier jumped into action immediately, leaping up high with his thrusters when laser fire erupted around him. He shot one Vehicon on his left and landed behind him, grabbing him. He took his sword and slit his neck while the Vehicon's body took the bullets for him before he leveled his stun blaster and shot the two nearest and one advancing from the far side. Shoving the body off and shooting for cover fire, he yanked out his blade with his free hand, skidded across the ground and jabbed his sword into the glitching Vehicon's throat before lunging and ducking behind the red car.

Two down, seven plus Starscream to go.

Quickly turning on his shield, wincing when several bullets zipped by and cracked into the car he took precarious cover behind, Nightflier propped his shield up and took cover behind it, shooting at the five Vehicons before him. Oddly, Starscream and the two Vehicons that stood by him didn't attack, too arrogant and gloating to try to take a shot in his almost-blind spot. Nightflier kept a sharp eye for deception from them, and he open fired on the Vehicons. Their bullets ricocheted in different directions when they struck his electrical shield.

When one Vehicon advanced too much, Nightflier bolted over the car, lunging forward and jabbing his blade up beneath the 'Con's belly plates, ripping the protoform to shreds and penetrating his energon tanks. Nightflier ducked and rolled beneath the electrical lines, dodging more bullets as he took cover behind the side of the building.

The humans screamed, cowering as he ran around the back of the building to the other side and back to the front where a Vehicon stood too close. Running full throttle, Nightflier leapt towards him. The sleek silver Vehicon took a step back, and Nightflier landed against the wood pole holding the electrical lines. It snapped beneath his weight, and it brought the electric box crashing down on the Vehicon. Electricity crackled and zapped as Nightflier jerked back and dove to the side, ducking behind the pickup truck that was bigger and provided more cover.

He propped his shield up again, using it for cover as he considered the three left and the two beside Starscream that were looking hesitantly towards their commander for the attack. Starscream's lip curled, sneering in anger at him, and Nightflier stifled a laugh, amused that he had peeved the Decepticon.

When one of his stun shots temporarily incapacitated a seeker, Nightflier jumped into the offensive, leaping over the truck and running towards the two left standing. He blocked their bullets with his shield, ricocheting them back, and one got his with his own bullet. The 'Con fell, hit directly in the chest, struggling to get back up.

Starscream's voice turned shrill. "Kill him already!"

Nightflier slammed his electrical shield into the Vehicon's face, successfully making his audio receptors and optics fritz at the overload of electricity, and then he jabbed his blade into his pit. Energon gushed out, his tank punctured, and the Vehicon collapsed to leak to death.

A frustrated snarl. "Incompetent glitches! I'll do it myself!"

Before Nightflier could attack the one that he had previously shot—the one still struggling to find his peds again—he glanced back to Starscream. His optics widened at the missile pointed directly at him. Not taking any time to think further, Nightflier jumped up, curling in a ball behind his shield—

The blast exploded and sent him flying back. Nightflier shouted, tumbling and skidding across the ground, audios ringing and optics glitching. He groaned, pulling himself along, and he was such an easy target he felt the laser fire burn across his shoulder and peel back the paint. With a lunge towards the large figure he could see in his fritzing optics, he took cover behind one of the cars on the side, gasping for a steady in cycle.

His optics glitched with static. He thumbed over the gilded design on his scabbard, but the mechanism didn't respond. It clicked with the effort of trying to turn itself on, but the blast had rendered it disabled. Nightflier's spark rate kicked up. Slot, slot, SLOT this couldn't be happening . . .

Hearing returned with screams. "He's got another missile! He's got a missile!"

"Get up! Get up, you've got to get up!"

"Please, you've got to help us!"

"Oh God, save us, save us, please . . ."

"Get up! He's got another missile!"

It was like they were trying to max out his audios with their screams of desperation. Wildly, Nightflier turned from the humans and back to look at the three Vehicons and Starscream. The stiletto-heeled mech snarled, shoving a Vehicon out of his way while stalking forward with the Apex Armor clutched in his hand. Nightflier scrambled when he lifted his other wrist-mounted rocket.

The car exploded and the blow tossed Nightflier back again. He hit the ground with a heavy groan, body shaking in pain and shock. He struggled to get up, and his schizophrenic hand smacked into a vehicle. With a grit of his dentures and a growl to bolster his strength, Nightflier forced himself to drag himself over the hood, ducking behind the van as he gained a second to reorient himself.

He couldn't see past the static fizz in his optics. He kept thumbing his scabbard, trying to get his shield to turn back on for protection, but it wasn't responding. Was it ruined? Oh Primus, it better not be, Hot Spot had sank so many credits into it . . .

_Aw, slot, Hot Spot's gonna kill me!_

His optics cut back online. The ringing faded, and he looked up just in time to see a Vehicon standing above him with his gun cocked.

Automatically, Nightflier snapped back into action and ignored the throbs of pain all down his body. He knocked the Vehicon's wrist away, turning the gun off course and the bullet crashed to the ground. He wrenched the bot's arm back and around, swiped his legs beneath him and tripped him. Nightflier didn't watch the Vehicon go stumbling right into a tangle of electrical lines, but his olfactory systems picked up the smell of burning electricity.

Two more, and Starscream. Nightflier resolutely kept clicking the scabbard, trying to get it to work as he shot a couple shots to ward off the last two Vehicons. Then, with a couple faulty bursts of electricity, his shield blazed back on.

_Praise the good Primes!_

With a grin now that it was working, Nightflier vaulted over the top of the van and barreled forward towards the last two Vehicons, deflecting blaster fire. He ducked, turned, and slit the hip wires of the first, kicking the back of his knee and causing the mech to pitch to his knees. Nightflier then used him as leverage and jumped and kicked his peds into the other Vehicon's face, burning out his optics with his peds. He reached down, slit the throat of the one on the floor and then—because his arms were up, holding his ruined optics—jabbed his blade into his exposed armpit.

Nightflier whirled back around to Starscream just in time to hear and see the last heavy clang of the Apex Armor snapping into place.

He flashed the irate 'Con a grin, feeling infinitesimally tiny and intimidated since he only came up to . . . just below his waist when he wore that armor. "So, how am I doing as a stupid little Autobot that fell into your trap?" Nightflier gave a gesturing shrug to the dead Vehicons. "Does scrapping your whole battalion mark me up a notch or two of a threat?"

Starscream's lip sneered dangerously. "You're going to wish you had never interfered," he snarled. "You'll die here, and I'll present your spark to Megatron for his trophy room!"

Nightflier fell on the defensive, dodging first a swipe over his head and then diving out of the way when Starscream's fist pummeled down into the concrete. Chunks cracked and flew. Nightflier rolled back to his peds, spark beating a mile a minute as he launched his attack at his back.

His short sword skidded across his back. Nightflier whirled and cut at Starscream's hip before the lumbering titan could catch him, but it was to no avail. His blade chinked off.

A powerful backhand sent Nightflier flying back. He crashed into something hard, a car, and he tumbled over it, hitting an electrical pole before skidding to a halt, wings inches from the nearest human. He groaned in agony, sun spots of pain and shock spreading through his systems at the sheer force of the blow. As he shakily pushed himself to his knees, he could only thank Primus he had held on to his sword.

Nightflier strained to get up, hearing the telltale thuds of Starscream's footsteps. Staggering to his peds, Nightflier ran up and ducked beneath the electrical lines and sliced across Starscream's stomach. The Decepticon laughed maniacally.

"You cannot harm me while I wear the Apex Armor! In this, I am INVINCIBLE!"

At the last second as he tried to jab in the 'Con's pit, trying and trying for the weak points in the armor, he realized that he should have just had the Phase Shifter on him. He could knock him out of that armor easily with it, but what had he done with it?

Given it to Smokescreen in case the mech needed it.

Nightflier jerked when he felt Starscream grab his crippled wing. He jolted in terror, thinking him to tear it off, but the Decepticon merely laughed and laughed before swinging him up with ease and slamming him face flat into the ground. His systems fritzed and tried to recalibrate glitching systems, and pain spread like a thousand knives. Then, slung like a rag doll, Nightflier went flying and crashed to the ground again, tossed like yesterday's trash.

He tumbled once, twice, and then to a halt in the street. He shuddered on the ground as his body trembled in agony for how harshly Starscream had lambasted him into the unforgiving earth. He had lost his grip on his sword. It lied next to him, forgotten as he leaked from the mouth and various other fracture places.

Starscream's leering laughter danced across his audio receptors while his optics tried to recalibrate. "Give up, Autobot," he cackled. "If you lay down your weapons, I may yet let you live."

Nightflier shook. He pushed against the ground until he got his forearms beneath him as his in cycles vented sharply to keep the extra heat out of his systems. Lifting his weary helm, his optics recalibrated and sharpened. He stared at whose eyes he met.

Two sets of eyes, in fact. A woman, clutching her daughter close. Nightflier was barely aware of the chorus of voices all around, all urging him to get up, to help them, to save them. His optics zeroed in on this one woman, with her own daughter simply crying in fear on her, and the words her mouth said:

To stop. To not do it. Run. He was going to get himself killed. Save himself.

She was different. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Autobot blue eyes. Nightflier blinked at her, unable to hear Starscream's gloating or even hear her voice above that of the other humans. It was one thing for all those humans to have his back, to encourage him, and believe in him . . .

It was different to see one willing to sacrifice her life for his.

His lips flattened. She began to shake her head, scared tears beading in her eyes. His optics hardened. He hadn't come this way to kill Decepticons. Though his hand shook, he reached over and grasped the hilt of his sword.

He had come here to save lives.

With a great grit of will, Nightflier jabbed his sword into the ground, giving himself leverage to haul himself to his peds. Starscream's gloating laughter stopped short as he saw Nightflier rise, turning to face him.

"W-What? Do you have a malfunction? You can't win, Nightflier! You're only going to die!"

Nightflier spat a glob of energon out. He glared. "Life or death, live or die—I won't give in until I'm dead, Starscream. I'm NOT going to let you slaughter innocent humans!"

Starscream sputtered. "Why throw away your life so recklessly?"

Nightflier's lip curled. "That's a question you should ask yourself."

The Decepticon scoffed. "Tell you what," he drawled. "I'm feeling generous. I'll ask you one more time to surrender."

Nightflier shook his head. He tightened his grip on his sword. "If I die here, then at least I die for something honorable."

Starscream scowled darkly at him. "Then you'll DIE!"

They engaged again, only this time, Nightflier attacked differently. He dropped to his knees, skidding low and beneath Starscream's punch before he jumped to his peds again. Leaping up with a kick of his heeled thrusters, Nightflier landed on Starscream's shoulders. Red optics glared up in surprise and anger.

With a snarl, Nightflier jammed his sword as deep as he could into the 'Con's neck plating, but the Apex Armor held fast, protecting him from all harm. He stabbed beneath the shoulder plating only to find the armor impenetrable. With a frustrated growl, Nightflier slammed his electrical shield down at Starscream's face. A cloud of electricity flew up, but Starscream just flinched minutely at him before his optics flared. Two giant palms reached up, and Nightflier knocked one back with his shield—Starscream snarled in irritation, jerking back at the bolts of electricity that conducted through the armor. Nightflier's optics widened in shock at his epiphany before Starscream's other palm grabbed him.

The ground rushed up so quick Nightflier missed it with a blink. Static burst in his optics and pain flared in every synapse in his neural net. He rolled away, driving his full weight on his sword to sink it into Starscream's knee, but the Apex Armor allowed no harm. He jerked against his sword, stuck in the armor, and before he could wrest it free, Starscream gripped him by his neck and slammed him back into the ground. He groaned, spasming in agony.

Starscream laughed in triumph at the Autobot brought low beneath his power. He grabbed his short sword, grinning maliciously in domination. "What a little TOY this thing is!" Nightflier bucked and screamed when Starscream jabbed the blade into his upper left arm, piercing both armor and protoform all the way through. "Pathetic little wretch! You're almost more fun than you're worth!" Starscream's ped stamped down on his right knee, and Nightflier cried out again, vocals cracking and body jerking in torturous pain as his leg snapped and energon began to bleed.

The Decepticon air commander laughed in exultation. "I haven't had this much fun in a LONG time!" He cracked up again, and Starscream kicked Nightflier in his chassis, sending the small seeker flying. Nightflier crashed to the ground, tumbling and skidding to a halt on his back. He shuddered in agony, static filling his optics and coughing on energon. His leaks poured his life's blood.

Heavy footsteps broke the rushing of energon in his audios. He strained to lift his head some, seeing a smudge through the static, terrifying and lethal.

"A pity I can't kill you the same way I did last time." Nightflier dropped his helm, twitching painfully. Pain overloaded his senses. "If only I had a bomb . . . that might make this little reunion a bit more memorable, don't you think?"

Nightflier blinked up at the sky, spasming periodically in agony. Kill him again . . . A bomb . . .

A slow epiphany filled his processor.

_No._

_ This can't be._

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**I love this chapter. All of it. So, Dreadwing's hanging for a bit longer, will I keep him alive or let him die? For that matter, will I let Fli-Ni live or die? And Cliff and Nights are going to have fun being all alone on their little island catching up on what really happened in the past and enjoying their present. They should have another smut scene soon ^^ Gotta fix Nights and all her disorders, right?**


	51. Madness

**Author's Note:**

**Here's Fli-Ni's art! Just remove the astriks!**

**h*t*t*p*:*/*/*k*a-j*u*.*d*eviantar*t*.*co*m*/*a*rt */*N*ightfli*er-37*2799189**

**There are also smutties truncated from this chapter. PM me if you want the link to the unedited chapter.**

**And again, thanks for all the support you guys give me with this story :)**

* * *

><p>"I'm going to make you SQUIRM, Nightflier," Starscream's voice taunted him devilishly. "You're going to BEG for me to stop!"<p>

Nightflier felt sickening horror fill his spark.

_No. That can't be right. Him—HIM! He—He was the one that made me . . ._

His wing with the brace fluttered slightly beneath him.

_He made me a cripple._

"And once I'm through with you, I'll drag your dead carcass to Lord Megatron!"

Nightflier gritted his dentures when Starscream grabbed his neck, hoisting him up easily. Nightflier's peds kicked and his in cycles thinned. "Look at you, pathetic wretch!" Starscream cackled, and Nightflier stiffened, optics flaring wide when he felt Starscream's fingers grip his wing with the brace. Starscream tutted his glossia. "Isn't that a shame. A helpless little cripple. Maybe I'll rip it all the way off this time."

Against his will, terror filled his spark, and Nightflier keened slightly when Starscream began to pull. He felt the shriek of metal and the strain it put on his wing. Starscream just laughed heartily, thoroughly enjoying the torture of his victim. He threw him down again, and Nightflier slammed into the concrete, spark sputtering in fear at the thought of losing his wing again and pain shocking through his neural net.

"You really are an easy wretch. Any last words?"

Nightflier shuddered, and his wings fluttered. He bared his teeth at the ground, hissing in pain. "None you'd want to hear, Starscream," he managed to bite out.

A rev of an engine caught Nightflier's attention. A second later, a feminine war cry interrupted and a small body slammed into Starscream's back.

Nightflier watched as Starscream staggered and then whirl away with a look of fury in his optics. "If it isn't ARCEE," he sneered. He walked away. "Come to help this pathetic wretch? How sweet of you. It's a pity you'll only die here with him."

"Not if I can help it, Starscream" he heard her growl back. He groaned, and his hand shook as he began to take off his shield. "I'm not scared of you."

Nightflier set his jaw. "Arcee!" He tossed his shield in the general direction of her voice, and he heard her transformation and rev of her engine. "The electricity! It conducts electricity!"

For a second, as the fight began in earnest again, Nightflier just lied on the ground, incapacitated by pain and warning signals flickering across his static-filled optics.

_She needs my help. She was smaller than even me. I have to get up!_

With a long-suffering groan, Nightflier shifted until he sat up slightly, and though he shook in apprehension for the pain he was about to inflict on himself, he knew it was necessary.

His hand curled around the hilt of his sword, Then, squeezing his optics shut, Nightflier yanked the blade from his impaled arm. Agony flared like fire. He screamed shortly, dropping his weapon and flopping back heavily on the ground, venting tightly as the energon poured more freely from his arm.

Arcee's grunts and yells mixed in with Starscream's taunts and infuriated screams. Hissing slightly, Nightflier forced himself to sit up, and he looked at the grisly dislocation of his knee, locked outward in a way that prevented him from using it. His optics flattened when he heard Arcee cry out in pain and a crash. With shaking hands, he took his hands on either side of his disconnected knee. His wings flared as he steeled himself, and then, he jerked his knee back into place.

There came an audible crack-crunch and grind of metal parts screeching back into place. His entire body curled up and arched with a spasm, but he didn't scream.

Nightflier looked up. Starscream was watching him from the far side of the street with a sense of morbid curiosity and impressed horror. Then, the rev of Arcee's engine as she drove in close and fast for another attack distracted the Decepticon, and he turned back to her, engaging.

Grasping his blade doused in both Vehicon and his own energon, Nightflier staggered back to his peds. He hissed, leg wanting to buckle slightly, but he limp-ran to the side where Arcee was driving him closer and closer to the electrical lines.

Nightflier ducked beneath the electrical lines and backed up similarly to how he had done before. The tiny blue femme slowly made Starscream stagger back, Nightflier's shield lashed a bit clumsily and loosely to her arm, but her blows at Starscream were forceful and effective. The little sparks of pain from the high voltage of his shield drove Starscream backwards as well as Arcee's lithe form dodging his blows by a hairs breadth. The instant he was in range, Nightflier ran forward—ignoring the lances of agony rushing through his right knee—jumped, landed on the electrical pole, and wood snapped, bringing the electrical box crashing down on Starscream's head.

Starscream shrieked as the electrical current conducted through the Apex Armor. Ignoring the sparks singing against his armor, Nightflier grabbed the lines that snapped, and though it electrocuted him to his core, he jumped across, pulling them around Starscream's shoulder. His optics shorted out as Starscream began to thrash at the incredibly high voltage electrocuting him, and Nightflier groped blindly until he found the matching set of lines on the other side. With a snarl, he yanked them low, getting Starscream's other arm tangled in them.

Nightflier staggered back, gasping in pain until he stumbled backwards and into a strong, small pair of arms. He let Arcee support him and pull him back and away from the irate and screaming Decepticon.

In the time it took to finally recalibrate his optics, Starscream had finally managed to free himself from the electrical lines electrocuting him. Nightflier pushed off Arcee, gaining his own peds and brandishing his short sword again as the Decepticon staggered back, smoking and residue of electricity crackling across the Apex Armor. Arcee took an aggressive pose too, lifting his shield.

Starscream sneered. "You win this time," he hissed at them, stumbling away from them. "But mark my words! I'll be back with my armada, and I'll slaughter every last human in this town, and I'll have your sparks impaled on my hands!"

Arcee shot at him when he took off the Apex Armor, but he had taken off and fled so quickly her bullets missed. For a second, the two small Autobots just stood, one looking after the retreating Decepticon and the other taking steadying cycles of air. He let out a soft sigh. It was over. And just when he thought the entire town of humans was going to lift a cry of triumph, relief, and thanks, hard words cut the silence.

"What the frag do you think you were doing?"

Nightflier jumped, looking at the small blue femme that pivoted sharply to him. She retracted the blade on her arm and cast off his shield angrily. "I—I—What?"

"The frag were you thinking blowing your cover like that!" she snapped again. She cast her hands over the street decimated by battle. "Are you TRYING to get yourself killed?"

Anger started to bubble up in him, but he stifled it. "No," he stressed sharply, "I was trying to save lives!" He threw his servos out to the humans crouched in the shelter of their buildings. "Did you honestly think I was going to let him slaughter all these people?"

"And what for?" Arcee snarled back. "Just one town when the entire EARTH is at stake? Throwing away your life to protect one little town isn't going to save them all!"

"I wasn't trying to save them all, just these!" Nightflier snapped back before he could stop himself. He frowned deeply at her. "What good is saving the entire Earth if you sacrifice so many just to save yourself?"

"We have bigger problems than this!" she growled. "We're supposed to be surviving, not trying to play hero for a tiny settlement!"

Nightflier's optics flashed. "You see? That's exactly the kind of attitude that lost us Cybertron! You'll willingly sacrifice all of the little towns while you sit twiddling your thumbs about how to save the planet while you're letting people get slaughtered left and right! Why do you think I joined a strike force? Because I wasn't going to be a part of those sitting back and watching, I wanted to get out there in action and save lives!"

"What good is saving them now if they'll only get decimated the next day by a bigger, more effective team?" Arcee shot back.

His optics narrowed at her. "And no one thought to help Kaon when it was routed, did they?" he snapped at her, voice deepening to a low growl. "No one thought to help Simfur either! Or Tarn, or Blaster City, or Slaughter City, or Stanix—And all the small cities in between! Why do you think the Decepticons spread like the Plague? It's because no one stepped up to help those smaller than them!" Arcee recoiled at his vehemence. "I'm not about to forsake any life that I have the chance to save, got it? Now if you're an Autobot like that emblem of yours claims, then you can start sacrificing like one instead of looking out for your own hide!"

His scowl slipped. He felt his knee buckle from beneath him, and he threw out his servos, grabbing a hold of Arcee. She locked her knees, supporting him as he gasped thinly in her audio receptors.

"Here, here," she said, and she helped him over, laying him down against the closest parked car. Nightflier spasmed slightly again, suddenly VERY aware of his leaking and the amount of damage he had sustained.

"I-I'm sorry," he managed as she unclipped the armor of his arm to get a clear look at his wound. "I didn't mean to lose my temper. It's rare enough that I do, it just . . . hit a little too close to home."

Nightflier shifted uncomfortably at the thought of Kaon as he looked over at the humans still soundlessly huddled on the sides of the streets. "It's all right," Arcee told him quietly. He shifted and hissed a little when she began to apply pressure to his wound.

"Here—use these." Nightflier brought out what was left of his medical field kit, a few clamps, some electrical tape, and a spare welder.

He watched her make a face at the lack of proper tools to patch him, but she set to work immediately. Her optics flicked up only once as she dug around the gash, finding the severed energon lines. "Jack?"

"Right here," was the immediate answer, and Nightflier saw the human from back on Cybertron hovering close.

Nightflier twitched and gritted his teeth when he felt Arcee pull the wires, tape them together, clamp the bleeding lines shut. Her stunning optics flicked up once to him and back down. "Arcee," she finally offered her name. She tilted her helm. "And that's Jack. Who are you?"

He inclined his helm to both Jack and the femme patching him. "Fli-Ni."

Her hands froze. Then, a blaster was pointed to his face so suddenly he only had the time to blink before it appeared. He jerked in shock. "Whoa!"

"Who are you?" she snarled with deadly intent, and Nightflier shifted, ready to defend himself if need be, Autobots or not.

"I told you," he said evenly. "My name is Fli-Ni."

The barrel of her laser jabbed a bit closer. "FULL designation!"

His optics narrowed, reassessing her as friend or foe. "Nightflier of Kaon, sixth addition of the Protectobots, warrior class, function: espionage, reporting from Kalis, Cybertron, MA'AM."

His small glare faded at the look on Arcee's face agape with astonishment. Finally, her numb lips worked out, "Impossible . . ."

"Arcee." She jumped, looking back to the small human with her. Jack shook his head. "Now isn't the time. Starscream's gonna be back, and he's gonna be mad. We've got to get out of here."

"Scrap." Arcee knelt back down, putting away her weapon and hurriedly finishing patching up his arm. Nightflier shifted.

"I'm missing something. One of you care to fill me in?"

"Trust me," Arcee muttered. She snapped his armor back on, beginning to weld it closed. "You'll want to hear this in a better environment."

He didn't know what to think after she had pulled that gun on him, but finally he just said, "All right," and had to leave it at that.

Jack looked up to Arcee. "Should we try to contact Fowler for clean up?"

"I'm sure he already knows," Arcee murmured as she finished welding his arm. She touched up a couple leaking cracks in his knee, and Nightflier stood shakily with her help. Using her as leverage, Nightflier brought them near a fallen Vehicon.

When he knelt, taking out his blade and cutting into the Vehicon's body, Arcee recoiled. "What are you doing?"

"You don't remember ever having to do this?" Nightflier mused to her. He looked up to her, once again stunned by how pretty she was. Yeah. It was the optics. That was what he liked the best. "Scavenging. I won't make a flight so low on energon, and while it's not exactly appeasing . . . it'll work." He arched a brow. "When was the last time you had a good fill? Gas is only so sanitary."

She seemed to give a defeated sigh. "Affirmative."

Nightflier pried the Vehicon's energon tank free and hacked off the top as Arcee cut into her own Vehicon body. He took a drink, almost wincing at how warm the energon was from being in the Vehicon's body. His optics drew over the humans staring amassed beneath the awnings.

"We need to get them out of here."

Arcee came up next to him. They glanced at each other.

"Then I guess we better get started."

* * *

><p><strong>*scene truncated*<strong>

"Primus, Nights . . ." He shuddered again, shaking his head. "That was . . . ngh, FANTASTIC."

Nightstalker chuckled, climbing into his lap and enjoying the sight of his blackened optics and voice delirious with pleasure. She put an affectionate kiss on his cheek. "I love doing that to you. I love hearing you moan, and I'd do it all the time if I could."

"Anytime you want," he panted. He dropped his head back, shuddering once more beneath her. "Holy frag, Nights . . . I'm definitely going to have to do that to you."

She snickered before she could stop herself. "Newsflash, hot stuff," and she leaned up to murmur into his audio receptor, "I don't have a spike."

He waved a tired hand. "Technicalities," he slurred. He settled down, wrapping his arms around her and taking a deep cycle. "You've got a spark. I could do some serious WONDERS in a spot like that . . ."

Nightstalker chuckled softly, reaching up and stroking one of his horns. "Save it for another time, Cliff. Get yourself a recharge. You're tired."

He grumbled slightly, putting a small kiss on her audio receptor. "My pleasure," he murmured before sighing and, almost immediately, fell into a recharge.

Nightstalker's lips quirked up into a smile at the sight of him. Settling down and curling up in a ball in his arms, she laid her head on his shoulder, comforted by his presence. After a pause in the silence, she realized she wasn't that tired, and she opened back up Dreadwing's file, picking up where she had left off.

Dreadwing still stood at the side of the screen. Then, after a moment, it flicked black and picked back up with him sitting on his berth again. After a moment, he continued, "She became my spark mate that night, and also the bearer of my sparkling. During this time, dissent among the gladiators began. Megatronus was rising into power, and he stirred rebellion. My spark was with him. This was the mech I placed my hopes in and through him, promised Ampere and our unborn son that we would be free."

The great air commander shook his head. "Ampere worried. She did not approve of my willingness to run into battle, and I tried to pacify her the best I could. I took her to meet my brother, and I was relieved when he liked her immensely. There came a span of time in which I did not see Ampere for the longest. I worried because of the skirmishes about, but soon, she came back to see me." He shook his head. "She carried my son below her spark chamber, hidden from my master's view. He did not suspect I had sparked her."

Nightstalker witnessed a small smile play at the edges of his mouth. He looked down at his servos. "He was tiny, Nightstalker," and the femme felt her spark jump, amazed that he had used her name without malice. "He fit, just so . . . in the palm of my hand. He was the most precious gift I had ever been given. We named him Flier because it was our greatest desire, to fly to freedom. We named him after the night because it had been in the night where our only solace and love was."

There was a pause in which Dreadwing reflected, and then, he pushed a sigh out of his vocalizer and leaned his elbows on his knees. "Ampere always said he was the spitting image of me, but he had his mother's optics. He had her free spirit, and her talkative personality. Though I tried to toughen him up, he cried easily. He wore his spark on his sleeve." Dreadwing stopped. "He was a curious rascal," he said while shaking his head. "He got into everything and hid so well from us. And was just as fidgety as his mother."

Nightstalker shifted when Cliffjumper moved beneath her. But, he settled down again, so she curled back up and diverted her attention back to the video.

Dreadwing rubbed his brow. "Shortly after she left, Megatronus began his uprising. He began by liberating all of the gladiators still in the shackles of slavery. My brother and I were amongst the mechs he helped free, and we pledged our allegiance to him. We were affirmed by his rescue that he would free us all and create a society in which we could live freely, and with it, Ampere and Nightflier could live happily with what they wanted, not slaves like my brother and I."

He vented sharply, turning his face away in his dim recharge room. "We found her living in a cheap apartment with Nightflier. These were . . . our last happy times. We celebrated as we could. Skyquake adored his nephew. We were . . . happy. A close knit family that loved each other."

Dreadwing made a frustrated sound. Nightstalker traced illicit and vague circles in Cliffjumper's chassis as she watched and listened quietly to her family's background. "I had to leave. I had pledged my allegiance to Megatron with Skyquake, and Ampere resented that. She begged me to stay. She said we could run away and hide and live in peace." He shook his head slowly, leaning his chin on his fists broodingly. "But I knew the peace would not last. The planet was falling into war. There was no way for us to run and be safe unless we were in the haven of Decepticons where the Autobots could never get to her. So I forced her to say while Skyquake and I headed out to the front to battle.

"Much . . . changed during this time." Dreadwing rubbed a hand over his face, a trouble rumble rattling from his chassis. "Skyquake and I became renowned generals. We were Megatron's most reliable generals, both in strength and loyalty, because we fought through his cause for our family, no matter how little it was. When I finally had the chance to go back, I found Ampere again, but the struggles of war had hit her. Credits were tight. She lived on what little they had through me, and she fought with herself often, refusing to sell her body again for money though she knew she needed it."

He trailed off again. Agitated, he stood again, pacing and shaking his helm. "I should have known," he cursed quietly. He halted looking away from the camera, hands gripping his hips tightly. "That should have spoken of her fidelity to me. It should have been more than enough to reassure me that . . . but I came in, and Nightflier's helm was changed. It was not my helm, the helm he had inherited cybernetically."

His jaw clenched. Every fiber in his body seemed to reel up in anger. "I was furious," he whispered. "I demanded to know why she had dishonored me by trying to erase my heritage from my own son. Before she could answer, I demanded to know who the mech was, demanding her for a name, promising to rake the mech over the coals. I shook her. She said there was no one else, only me. I didn't believe her. I again asked about his helm. She said she was scared. She said people had been asking about him, that they wanted to know if he was my son. They knew who I was, and she was afraid they would hurt us. So she changed it.

"I told her she shouldn't have changed it. They were under my protection." Dreadwing shook his head, seeming to become stiffer with anger until he would snap. "She told me I was out fighting," he hissed. "There was no one protecting them but her. I told her she was wrong, that I fought for her, that I was there for her. She told me I was never there."

Nightstalker felt her spark begin to pain. She curled up tighter into Cliffjumper, seeking his protection from a tragedy she wished she could change and couldn't. He shifted in his sleep, arms automatically tightening around her.

"I argued that I was doing all I could. I shook her and shook her so much she said I was hurting her." Dreadwing shook his head. He cursed under his breath, shaking his head and pacing to the other side of the room and muttering, "That probably hurt the most. That I was hurting her when I swore to protect her. So I let go. I . . ." He finally gave a weak, defeated sound as he passed his hand over his face. "I can't even remember everything we argued about. All I can remember is that anger, the dishonor, her tears . . . and my accursed pride. I left, seething, vowing not to come back until she apologized."

She watched his wings droop. He pressed his face into his palm a moment, silence overtaking the video. Cliffjumper stiffened beneath her, dreaming. Nightstalker reached up, stroking his cheek, shushing him. He settled, and Dreadwing finally began talking again.

"Of course, that never happened. She couldn't dare go to the front where I fought, and my pride kept me from going back. We grew distant in our sparks. We still loved each other, we just . . . couldn't overcome this hurdle with everything falling to Pit around us. Eventually, I . . . guess it grew too much for her to bear, my cold shoulder. She was so affectionate, and I can easily see it as that, but . . . She broke the bond. She took herself away from me."

Nightstalker watched him sink back into the berth without strength. He pressed the heel of his palms to his forehead, staring down at the floor. "I was . . . distraught," he finally managed. "I thought—Primus, for that one, horrible moment, I thought she had died. I was terrified. I could still feel Nightflier, and I knew he was too young to be caring for himself yet. I tried and tried to buy myself some military leave time, but I was refused it. It was well known that Megatron believed that loyalty should come to him first and no one else, and it was no wonder I was not allowed to leave to find out what had happened." A low grumble shook his chassis. "My brother covered for me, and I finally went anyways.

"When I found Ampere I was so relieved. I saw her, alive and well, though a little haggard from her hardships. I was ready to throw myself at her peds and beg for her forgiveness. I was ready to do anything for her, even forsake the Decepticon cause for her, anything to have her back. And then . . . I . . ." Cold red optics looked up to the screen.

"I saw you."

Nightstalker swallowed, and then, she jumped when Cliffjumper stiffened and jerked in his recharge, a soft cry catching on his vocals. Cutting Dreadwing's video short, Nightstalker turned her attention to him as he jerked again, crying out fully this time.

She grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. "Cliffjumper! Cliff, wake up! Cliff—"

She shook him again, and his optics snapped open, wild and in a frenzy. Immediately, he grabbed her, bringing her into a crushing hug as he began to continuously soothe his hand down her wings.

"You're all right," he cracked out of his vocalizer. He shuddered, pressing scared kisses to the top of her helm. "You're all right, I'm here, I promise . . ."

Nightstalker shushed him as best she could. She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting him stifle her in his desperate embrace. He rocked, shivering in remembrance of the relived nightmare.

"It's all right, Nights, I'm here, I promise. I promise . . . I won't let it ever happen again, I swear . . . I'm sorry . . ."

Tears pricked her optics. Nightstalker blinked them back steadily, knowing exactly what he was talking about. "It's not your fault," she whispered back.

"Yes it is," he rasped. He trembled, rocking her and soothing her, kissing her, eaten up with guilt. "I should have done something. Anything."

"And what good would you being dead be?" she murmured back. She pulled back, looking him in his optics.

Something seemed to tear inside him. He leaned forward, kissing her deeply before breaking away, trying to stifle haunted tears. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry . . . I should have been able to protect you . . . I'm sorry . . ."

She hugged him tighter, seeking to comfort him. "Cliffjumper," she said softly, "it's all right—"

"No it's not," he interrupted roughly. He leaned back enough so that he could look into her optics. "You keep trying to tell me that you're not worth it, but you are, Nights. You are to me. And the fact that I couldn't protect the one thing I care about most in this life just tears me apart."

Filled with broken passion, Cliffjumper kissed her again, a hand reaching up and holding her behind her helm. Then, he hugged her again, pressing kisses to the side of her head as he tried to calm himself down.

Nightstalker's spark shifted. Her breathing became shallow as she finally saw the light she had missed for so long.

_I'm in love._

More than that—he loved her.

_This is what it's like . . . to be loved?_

He cherished her. He would die for her. Even with the fact that she had tortured him when they first met, he put it behind him, caring about who she had become. Slowly, the epiphany turned from shock into horror.

_This is madness. I'm—I'm in love? I'm in LOVE? Why—What—I'm in love? How—Why does he love me? I'm in love?_

Then, the fear wore off, comforted by the strength of his arms, the depth of his voice, and the compassion in his voice laden with guilt.

_He loves me . . . despite all my imperfections. He doesn't care that I was a glitch, he doesn't care that I was a torturer, he doesn't care that I'm a sadomasochist, he doesn't care that I'm bipolar—_

_ He just cares. Loves._

Though he couldn't see them, hot tears began to slip down her cheeks. She held him tightly, struggling to hide her tears of shame.

_I'm in love._


	52. Revelations

He limped slowly with Arcee. At first, it had been impossible to walk on his weakened leg. So she had offered him support and let him lean on her, little labored breaths in her audio receptor.

Nightflier stood straighter now, albeit he still used her for support. They walked so slow even Jack could keep up without any problem.

They didn't speak. Not one word since that afternoon of battle, and nightfall was coming fast. Nightflier felt his optics slide back to Arcee in the silence. Her unique blue optics ringed in blazing purple were set resolutely forward.

_She really is pretty. _For a second, he just looked at her, enticed by those optics until he looked away so suddenly he almost blushed. _By the Celestial Spires, Nightflier! You can't be staring at her! THAT was classy. Why don't you drool at her next? Come on, you've seen femmes before._

True, he had seen a couple in passing, maybe had one or two unwittingly when the Protectobots got him overcharged off the high grade—because they all knew he couldn't hold his weight—but he'd never really . . . interacted with a femme before. He'd only seen a couple in his lifetime that he could remember. Against his will, his optics drew back to her face.

_Yeah. Definitely the prettiest femme I've seen. And she's even shorter than me! I didn't think that was possible!_

Sensing his gaze, she looked up. For a second, their optics locked. Then, panic at being caught staring at her slashed through him, and Nightflier's optics widened before he flung himself away from her so promptly that he fell on his aft.

A brief human yelp alerted him to Jack that he had nearly quashed, and Nightflier blushed brightly in embarrassment, holding still so Jack could scamper around and to the opposite side. He cleared his vocalizer briefly before trying to laugh it off with a nervous but warm laugh.

"You scared the primal Primus out of me."

Her cross look turned confused. "The . . . WHAT?"

Nightflier got up, dusting himself off a little as Jack tried to put in helpfully, "I think he means something along the lines of . . . BEJESUS, I think."

Briefly looking up the expression, Nightflier nodded at the little human. "Yeah, that's the one. Bejesus. Heh. Strange." When both Jack and Arcee just kinda looked at him, he felt the heat of embarrassment starting to come back. "Eh, sorry," he finally said awkwardly. Instinctively, he fluttered his wings. He gave a small gesture. "Sorry, off topic . . . I guess we ought to keep moving?"

Before he could make a further fool of himself, Nightflier began to half-limp forth, knee aching but not really preventing him from walking. Arcee didn't offer her arm again, and finally, she said warily, "I'm—sorry. You just—speak strange."

Nightflier shrugged a worried shoulder. "It's an underground Kaon dialect thing. We just talk differently than the rest."

When they lapsed back into silence, Nightflier shifted uncomfortably, feeling their eyes on him. He tried not to look at them since he knew he was the middle of attention, but every now and then, he would look over and accidentally meet their eyes.

_First Aid, you're never here when I need you most. How am I supposed to break the fourth wall here?_

Finally, it was Jack that spoke up.

"I'm sorry we're looking at you strangely," he offered uncertainly. "We uh . . . Just . . . didn't really expect you."

Nightflier gave a small shrug. "Yeah. I just kinda fell in with you guys. I was just sent to investigate what Megatron was doing on Cybertron with a battalion of soldiers, but got caught up in the fighting with you guys. So . . . Yeah." He fanned his wings, wondering what the heck he was doing wrong that he couldn't connect with them. He was the social butterfly of his teammates, so why was Earth so different from Cybertron?

"That's uh—not really what I meant," Jack finally ventured. He exchanged a glance with Arcee that spoke much more between them than Nightflier was comfortable transpiring beneath his nose.

_What is going on?_

Arcee spared a quick glance around and pointed. "There." Nightflier followed her finger and blinked at the abandoned shack through the trees. How in the world had she found that? "That will provide us cover from the 'Cons. We'll talk in there."

Nightflier just followed obediently, wings snagging a bit in the treetops. He was still on edge. He wasn't sure if he could really trust them yet . . . just because of that strange, STRANGE way they acted around him. He just needed all his chips on the table before he could make a complete decision on them. As it were, the human wasn't a problem, and he had already deduced that if it came down to it, Arcee couldn't overpower him.

He ducked down into the shack realizing belatedly that it was an abandoned barn, just high enough for them to stand inside. His wings snagged on the doorjamb before he laid them as flat as possible on his back. Resisting a wince, Nightflier eased himself into a sitting position, keeping a close optic on where his wings moved. He stretched his leg.

Arcee and Jack sat down across from him. When both looked at each other again, Nightflier shifted and gave them both pointed looks before he said,

"So. You guys know me. Are you going to explain how?"

Jack and Arcee both glanced at each other again. Finally, Arcee cleared her throat and said, "Your sister's name is Nightstalker."

He froze. Old wounds slowly peeled open that he had tried to keep covered up for so long. After a tense cycle, he finally managed quietly, "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time . . ." Because Arcee and Jack were cautiously watching for his reaction, Nightflier finally nodded. "Yeah," he cracked out haggardly. "That's my sister. I just-I prefer not to speak of her."

Arcee paused hearing the pain in his voice. Jack stuttered a bit because he was nervous, but told him, "W-well then, I-I think we might be the bearers of good news. N-Nightstalker's alive."

Nightflier winced back, staring at the offending human. A strangled sound emitted from his vocalizer, hurt-horrified. Immediately, he snapped, "Don't you patronize me! My sister is dead!"

"Well-that's what she believes about you!" Jack burst back with a helpless shrug of his hands. "How else would we know about you? She's told us all about you-"

"Don't lie to me!" he snarled with sudden vehemence. Jack recoiled when Nightflier leaned forward, claws gripping the ground with wings flaring wide with anger. "She's DEAD! Slaughtered along with all the sparklings on Kaon!" His optics gained a sheen, and his voice cracked in passion, so deeply angered that he growled. "I have not felt her in my spark since the day she died! If she was here on this rock I would have sensed her presence-if she was alive, I would have felt her across the GALAXIES no matter how far! So don't try to feed me falsehoods like this because I will NOT stand for it."

Agitated and hurt, Nightflier stood up, wings catching on the upper level of the barn. With a slight growl, his small stature belying the depth and power of his voice, he turned so his wings had room. When he stood to his full height, his wings perked up in anger and poked two holes through the roof, irritating him further. With another snarl, he flattened his wings angrily and turned to stalk out until Arcee jumped to her peds and grabbed his wrist.

"Wait—Nightflier, wait!" He wrest his wrist from her grip and instead grabbed her by the wrist, ready to shove her off. Luminous optics blinked back at him. "Don't judge until you've seen for yourself," she said quietly.

His throat shifted. He shook his head, disbelief paralyzing his systems as he rasped, "No—No, if she was alive, I'd feel her—I'd FEEL her! I'd feel her in my spark, I'd know! We're bonded—I'd feel her! I'd feel her."

Unwittingly, he yanked on Arcee's wrist, terrified and hopeful with the knowledge she teased him with. Arcee shifted, taking a step back and pulling her wrist away, unsettled by his proximity.

"Look," Arcee said, gesturing for him to sit. Unwillingly, he did so. "I don't know the whole story. I mean—given that you're alive when she thinks you're dead," and she gave a vague gesture to him, "but Nightstalker's alive. I don't know what I have to say to prove it, but regardless of what happened or what you think, she's alive."

"I was found by a bot named First Aid," Nightflier supplied as helpfully as he could, still so shocked that his voice strained to function. "He—I mean, obviously a medic . . ."

Arcee nodded. "Nightstalker was found by Knockout, a Decepticon. Also a medic."

Nightflier swallowed hard, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead, feeling like his processor was going to implode from the unimaginable. Finally, he looked up, optics wide and begging. "She's really alive?"

Arcee nodded. "Yes. She's alive."

Nightflier shook his head again. "No. I mean—Why should I trust you? She—I'd feel her in my spark! I know she's not alive. I've know it for years, if she was alive, I'd know."

When Arcee rubbed her brow in frustration, Jack piped up, "Look, I don't know why the bond is broken . . . Why you can't feel her . . . But she can't feel you either. That's why she thinks you're dead."

"That explains nothing," Nightflier snapped back. Shifting in agitation, throat tightening, Nightflier shook his head at them. "I don't have a reason to trust you."

"Wha—We're on your side!" Jack burst. He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "We're not trying to . . . Look, we just—You guys lived in Kaon. Nightstalker told us. She said . . . your father was a gladiator that went off on the 'Con side, you guys were street urchins, you stole energon and credits from people, um . . ."

When Nightflier stayed aloof, knowing that people could easily know that about him, Jack suddenly snapped his fingers, looking up. "Ampere!" Nightflier stiffened. "That's your mom's name. Nights said you always told her she was her spitting image."

His servos tightened on the floor. Nightflier felt his wings twitch as he looked down on this small human, and finally, he rasped, "How do you know that?"

"Nightstalker told me," he said simply.

Nightflier looked to Arcee for confirmation. She nodded. A faint hope, so unreal it hurt, flooded his spark. "She's alive," he finally stated again.

Arcee nodded. "Yes. I promise, she's alive."

He moved forward, crawling a bit. "But I mean—" He choked for a second, shaking his head in wonder. "She's really alive? Really?"

Arcee nodded again.

Nightflier dropped his helm, quivering as emotion flooded his circuits. He looked up to Arcee, hot tears beginning to bead in his optics. "What's she like?" he rasped. Arcee leaned back when he flung himself forward to her side. "Please! What's she like? She's grown up now, right? She fell in with Decepticons? She's not still one, is she? What happened? Is she all right? What's she like?"

Arcee blinked, too overwhelmed by his questions to really say anything, and Nightflier grabbed her hand, something tight constricting his throat. "Is she still a good girl? She's still smart? Happy? What's she like? She's—she's alive—" and his tears began to flow over, little sobs shaking his shoulders as he bent over, pressing his face into her lap to hide. "She's alive . . . She's alive . . . My little sister . . ."

His arms instinctively wrapped around her waist, clinging to what he could to anchor himself down to reality as he wept astonished tears of rapture. Arcee stiffened at him throwing himself at her feet, but because his combined grief and joy was so real, found herself putting a hesitant hand on the back of his helm. She glanced helplessly to Jack, but the human just smiled softly and shrugged, looking at the overwhelmed mech prostrating over her lap.

Nightflier cried for a moment more before he realized what he was doing. He made a surprised sound, pulling back and away. He wiped his tears with his knuckles, stammering, "S-Sorry, I didn't mean to—I'm sorry, I just—Sorry. I'm sorry."

As he frantically wiped his tears, Arcee found herself and shook her head, saying, "It's all right. I-It's a lot to take in."

Arcee could have slapped herself for the inadequate words for the situation, but Nightflier just nodded, trying to take a steady cycle.

_My little sister. She's alive. Oh Primus, she's alive._

He vented sharply, controlling himself before apologizing again. "Sorry. The bots always did tell me I wore my spark on my sleeve. But—" and his wide optics looked back to Arcee, "Please? Please, can you tell me about her? Please, I want to know everything about her."

When Arcee hesitated for a second, Jack came around so he was easier seen, saying, "Like she said, Nightstalker was taken in by Decepticons." Nightflier's full attention snapped down to Jack. The human shook his head. "I . . . won't say too much because things are very personal for Nightstalker. If you want to know some things, you'll have to ask her yourself." Nightflier nodded, waiting with baited breath as Jack described his sister. "Her function as a Decepticon was torturer." Nightflier tried not to flinch and instead, his breathing cycles just hitched. "When our friend, Cliffjumper, was captured, she was supposed to torture him, and did, but chose to save him. Shortly after, she became an Autobot."

Nightflier nodded, lips twitching as he listened raptly to the young human. Jack shook his head. "She, um . . . When you guys were separated on Kaon, she saw what happened to you."

His cycles stilled. A sick feeling spread in his spark. "She did?" he whispered.

Jack nodded. "The Decepticon that planted the bomb—that was Starscream." Nightflier nodded. "And the bot that was going to save you, that was Optimus Prime."

His optics widened. "That was . . . By the Celestial Spires . . . That was Optimus PRIME?"

"Yeah," Jack said, nodding. He crossed his legs, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably. "Nightstalker saw you." There was a heavy beat of silence as the human hesitated. Nightflier felt his vocals fuse, unable to think, unable to process how Nightstalker had kept living presumably seeing him blown to smithereens. "She saw Optimus run so he wouldn't die with you and . . . blamed your death on him. She wanted revenge, and she almost took it, but she realized that it wasn't Optimus's fault. It was Starscream."

Nightflier cycled out a slow breath. His shivering spark relaxed a little. That was right. His sister knew better. She was good, he knew it, and knew she didn't have the spark of a Decepticon.

"Well," Jack finally said awkwardly, trying to skirt over things as well as tell as much as possible, "she's went through some . . . really tough things, but after making it through all she has, I'm sure she's stronger for it, even if she doesn't realize it yet."

"What happened to her?" Nightflier asked quietly. He was a little confused about everything Jack was telling him, but he was also worried. They weren't giving him the entire story.

Jack just shook his head again. "You'll have to ask her. I'm not at liberties to tell her whole life story."

Nightflier winced a little. "Yeah. Sorry. I just—I worry."

The human shifted uncomfortably, glancing over at Arcee for help. She vented, troubled, and she captured Nightflier's attention with the soft sound. "She's had a rough life, Nightflier," she told him seriously. "We can't cushion it. She's had it hard, and she's had it bad. I'm sure even her processor is a little skewed by it all."

A sickening feeling spread in Nightflier's spark. His throat jumped. "What happened?" he rasped. When Arcee and Jack refused to give an answer, he grabbed her hands again, making her jump at the presumably forward gesture. "What happened?" his vocalizer cracked desperately again. "What happened to her? Is she okay? What's wrong with her?"

Arcee looked away, unable to keep his guileless gaze as he dug for information. "I'm not at liberties to say," Arcee echoed Jack quietly. "When you meet her again, you'll just have to ask her. I mean—she may act a bit skittish, paranoid even, a touch bipolar—but she's still strong. She . . . For all she's gone through and all she deals with, I couldn't be more proud of her. She has a will of iron, and she conquers her fears."

"She's small, but she's always determined to help, no matter what," Jack agreed. "And she cares so much about everyone. If you need help, she'll always give it, even if she can only do so much. She's resilient. She's beautiful. Her colors are black with touches of orange."

Nightflier gave a weak laugh, shaking his head. His lips twitched with the effort of a smile as his optics looked down on the human. "Black," he repeated. He shook his head. "For shame, Nights. That color's way too sexy for you."

"Well—I don't think the color was really for the appeal," Jack told him, though inwardly he suspected Megatron had a hand in that too. "She picked the colors because of you." Nightflier reared back in surprise. "She said . . . She picked the colors because that was all she could see left of you after the bomb went off. Just blackened, charred ground and flames. She wore it as a reminder of her loss. She didn't want to forget you."

His voice box clotted with tears. He turned his face away from them to look at the ground. "Primus, Nights . . ." he rasped thickly. "Primus . . ." Overwhelmed again, a few tears shuddered from his frame before he could control himself again, taking a deep vent.

Jack cleared his throat. "Um . . . She's got a boyfriend."

Nightflier looked up as Arcee exploded, "Jack!"

"What?" The human gave a shrug. "If I was a brother, I'd want to know!"

Nightflier blinked at them. "Um . . . What's a boyfriend?"

Arcee gave an impatient vent. "She's in a relationship."

For a moment, Nightflier stared, and then he frowned. "So who is this mech?"

"Cliffjumper," Jack said freely.

Nightflier blinked again. "The mech she tortured."

Jack nodded.

After a moment, Nightflier finally sucked in a vent. "How does something like that even work?" When Jack opened his mouth, Nightflier held up a hand. "Wait—Don't answer that." Then he narrowed his optics at the human. "He keeps his hands to himself?"

Jack faltered and looked quickly to Arcee for help. Arcee found herself staring at Nightflier, and he watched her look away just as fast. Brotherly protection and jealously surged up.

"No. This isn't going to work. No. This—No. Everyone's split up, right?" When they still awkwardly kept silent, Nightflier vented and glared. "People went in pairs if they had humans, right? So if they didn't, they went alone . . . RIGHT."

Arcee finally cleared her throat and glared right back at him. "No. Nightstalker had been recently hurt and her motor lines were not fully healed. She was not fit to transform yet, and under strict orders from the CMO, she was sent with Cliffjumper."

"Cybertron below me . . ." Nightflier stood again, swearing under his breath as he quickly realized where that lead to. He whirled on them, his wings knocking the beam on the upper level. The old wood snapped under the force and collapsed part of the roof.

Jack winced, taking cover behind Arcee as the ceiling fell on top of Nightflier, and a sputter caught on his lips before he could stop it. As Nightflier flailed a little, trying to get the wood off of him, Arcee had to bite her glossia to keep herself from laughing at the comical sight of a highly protective brother.

When he finally got himself untangled, though he was certain he got a few splinters caught under his armor, Nightflier frowned at Jack and Arcee. "Well?" he demanded an answer. "So why didn't she go with the medic! He's not dead, is he?"

Arcee took a steadying breath, fighting away the laughter before saying seriously, "No."

Nightflier threw up his hands, about to turn around again when he realized he would just knock down the other half of the ceiling. "She should be with the medic then! If she wasn't—I mean!" He stopped, giving an incomprehensible noise before plopping down on his aft, crossing his arms, and crossing his legs. He glared at Arcee, seeing it in her optics. "Don't you dare laugh."

He watched her bite her lip hard, and her wing struts moved, tensing. Jack was completely doubled up, rocking with tears streaming down his cheeks, but mercifully silent.

"It's okay, Nightflier," Arcee finally mustered up. "She's happy with him."

"Well, I guess that's one thing," Nightflier muttered. He vented. "Cliffjumper," he finally repeated thoughtfully, tasting the name on his glossia. "Hm. There anything I should . . . KNOW about this Cliffjumper?"

He said it suggestively, eyeing Arcee so she knew exactly all the things he was talking about. Her lips screwed up. "Other than the fact that he never knows when to shut up and is more annoying than rust in your undercarriage . . ." She trailed off, optics getting a little distant. She shook her head, saying to him, "No. He's fine. He's good for her."

Nightflier dropped his helm as he contemplated this. She had been alive for all that time, trying to make her own life, had her own relationship . . . She grew up without him. While he wasn't looking.

"So Cliffjumper," he finally murmured, "he's good for her."

Sensing him searching for some sort of confirmation, Arcee nodded. "Yes. He's . . . very good for her. He was the one that brought her out of her shell when she first became an Autobot." She looked away. "We . . . didn't really welcome her into the fold since she was Cliffjumper's torturer. He was the only one willing to give her a chance." Finally, Arcee looked him in the optics. "So yes, he's very good for her. And things are very serious between them."

Nightflier nodded, pushing out a vent. "Yeah . . . Okay. Well, thanks for the heads up. I needed that one."

Jack elbowed Arcee. "Told ya."

She just rolled her optics. "Right. Well, it's been a long day, and I know you need sleep," and she looked up to Nightflier, "and I know you'll need a good recharge so your self-repair systems can fix most of the damage."

Nightflier nodded. "Yeah. I gotta get back to Smokescreen. I was supposed to come back tonight. He's probably worried."

Arcee blinked. "You're with Smokescreen?"

Nightflier nodded. Then, his optics widened. "Slot! Sorry, I meant to tell you—I'm with Smokescreen and Prime!"

Jack jumped to his feet, and Arcee exploded, "Optimus! They're all right? Why the-You're supposed to tell us stuff like this! Anything else you're forgetting?"

"I—Hey!" Slightly affronted by her tone, Nightflier frowned, but he shook it off. "Look. I was outside and saw Wheeljack's ship get shot down. The Decepticon warship moved up, right over the base, and instead of sending a force in to check your ground bridge for coordinates, they just blasted the entire thing."

"W-Wait," Jack stuttered, blanching. "You mean . . . The base is gone?"

Nightflier nodded. "Yeah. It . . . Completely. I found Smokescreen in the wreckage a little later, and he was pulling the Prime along. He was . . . is . . . really bad. He's really bad."

Arcee swallowed. "How bad?"

He made a weak sound, shaking his head. He looked up, telling her truthfully. "So bad it's a wonder he's still with us. I was actually looking for Ratchet, but . . ." He trailed off, knowing it was apparent he hadn't found him.

A heavy silence overtook them, one where Nightflier could hear every hitch and whine of his systems and Arcee's. Finally, Jack murmured, "So . . . How long does he have?"

Nightflier licked his lips. "Um . . . I gave practically all of my field kit to Smokescreen to patch him up, but . . . It's definitely not enough. The damage is . . . extensive. If I don't find Ratchet . . . I wouldn't put it past any day for him to . . ."

Arcee dropped her helm. Her hands wrung tightly in her lap. Finally, she whispered, "We'll head out first thing tomorrow. We'll try to help find him. Keep in touch with us so we can find you guys. Are you safe?"

Nightflier nodded. "Yeah. We're deep underground so the 'Cons can't track our signals. We're as safe as can be."

It became so quiet again he was sure they could hear the uncertainties of his spark whispering in the wind. Eventually, Arcee cleared her vocalizer and whispered, "Then . . . We're all definitely going to need a good recharge for tomorrow."

"I'll take first watch," Nightflier volunteered quickly, knowing he was too wired to go back to sleep after hearing everything he had heard this night. He gave a slight gesture. "You guys go on and recharge. I'll keep watch."

* * *

><p>A staggered vent took in a dust bunny, choking him back to the land of the living. He struggled to cycle it out, and when he did, he heaved several great coughs. Agony poured through his chassis with the motion.<p>

A moment later, when he stopped trembling, he heard indistinct voices in the background. One was a little panicked, the other, brusque, and the other . . .

He knew those beeps and warbles.

The voices were silenced when he groaned. Steps brought someone above him, and Dreadwing's optics flickered on. Red and white colors frowned down on him.

"About time you woke up." A scan was performed, and the grouchy medic moved aside, checking his levels. A servo twitched, and Dreadwing groaned again, trying to reach across and to the IV dripping life-giving energon into his arm.

"Leave me . . ."

A rough hand smacked his away from the IV. "Don't you touch that. We've already spent too many supplies on you now for you to just die. Get over it. You're living."

Dreadwing gritted his dentures, arching his helm away. "I want to die," he rasped.

"Too bad." A flashlight was shined in his optics. "Follow the light."

Dreadwing closed his optics, spark withering in remembrance. "She died long ago . . ."

There was a pause, and Ratchet finally said, "Follow the light."

"Leave me."

"Follow the light."

Dreadwing opened his optics and glared in the general direction where Ratchet's body was silhouetted against the light. "Why does it matter to you?" he hissed. "Is this some cruel Autobot torture? To prolong my misery longer?"

"No," the CMO replied in a clipped tone, "this is a medic trying to save a stubborn patient. Now you're going to live, you are already on the mend, and I am not going to let you die. Now, follow the light, or I'll remove your optics and you won't ever have to worry about following it."

An equally angry vent rattled from Dreadwing's chassis, but he finally followed the order, allowing the medic to continue his examination.

"And as for your former question," Ratchet replied stiffly without looking at him, "I don't know why I'm keeping you alive yet. I'm not sure if it's to kick you around some more for hurting Nightstalker, or if it's because I know Nightstalker still cares for you despite what you've done to her." The medic moved off, muttering to himself about wiping the masochism from her mind.

Dreadwing turned his head, and immediately, he recognized the chambers as the _Harbinger_. Starscream left this kind of intel out for grabs? It only added to his grief before he remembered he had betrayed the Decepticons.

So, the techie Autobots had managed to find the derelict _Harbinger_ again. And using it to their advantage as a safe hold. His red optics cut across the room to see the young scout, Bumblebee looking at him. When he kept his gaze, Bumblebee twittered and hurried off and out of his line of sight.

Dreadwing looked back up to the ceiling, incapacitated on the medical berth. It was stiff with years, uncomfortable, and obviously the medic hadn't bothered to move him so he wouldn't get any bed sores. He tried to shift himself with little, but heartening results. The pressure on his shoulders shifted, offering a little relief.

_That is the mech that snuffed my brother's spark._

He didn't know what to think about the young scout. He was . . . impressed that the young warrior had been able to confront his brother, a seasoned warrior, and come out victorious. And yet he hated him. He despised him for taking his twin from him. He had helped cause the agony that bled from his spark.

Perhaps it was no different than how he looked at Nightstalker. Despising her and impressed with her both. She infected the aches in his spark, but her fortitude was better. She was stronger. He had allowed the Decepticons to corrupt his honor. Despite having been a Decepticon, Nightstalker had not allowed hers to become twisted.

*Um . . . Ratchet doesn't mean that*

Dreadwing looked listlessly over to Bumblebee, exhausted and pained. The young scout peeked over his shoulder at the medic deep in conversation with someone over the Decepticon line. Ingenious.

*I mean . . .* Bumblebee twittered uncertainly before whispering in a hurry, *He's keeping you alive for Nightstalker because he knows she cares. He's really not cruel, he's just worried about everyone and that makes him stressed*

Dreadwing turned his helm away. He waited for the Autobot to leave him alone, and a second of hesitation filled the silence. Then, quietly, so quiet he wasn't sure he had heard it,

*I'm sorry about Skyquake*

A vent decompressed heavily from him. "Do not worry yourself," he finally muttered. "You did what needed done."

*But I didn't want to kill him* the scout murmured. *Especially not now . . .*

Dreadwing couldn't look at him. He stared off at the opposite wall, struggling inside. "If you did not do what you had, you would be dead. That is the rule of war."

He heard the scout shuffle his peds. *That doesn't mean I can't be sorry for it*

After a moment, Dreadwing closed his optics, trying to refute the scout's gullible empathy. "What do I matter to you?"

*I don't want to hurt anyone* he said simply.

"Not even a Decepticon?"

*Not even a Decepticon. But you're not a Decepticon anymore.*

Dreadwing stiffened. "I'm not an Autobot."

*But you're still not a Decepticon.*

"That means nothing."

*I think it means a lot*

Dreadwing felt his metal hinging up as if attacked. "Leave me," he rasped.

After a moment, Bumblebee did as asked. Dreadwing felt a decompression of air seep from him, full of regrets and confusion. Where to go from here? He didn't even know the extent of his own injuries. He just knew he had been shot in the back by Megatron, and it had taken everything he had to get off the ship in one piece. What now? A prisoner of war by the Autobots?

_His destiny . . ._

Anguish filled his spark. Whose destiny? For once, instead of speaking too much, Ampere had spoken too little. He couldn't make heads or tails of her cryptic words. An aggrieved vent spilled from him, and he closed his optics, too tired to think about it. He didn't want to think about it. He wouldn't.


	53. Tying Up Loose Ends

**Author's Note:**

**Haha, nothing's been truncated from this chapter, I'm going to let you use your imagination! ;)**

* * *

><p><em>"Haha! Tag! You're it!"<em>

_ Nightstalker bolted down the halls of the Decepticon stronghold,_ _but Megatron didn't move a ped. He merely watched her and arched a brow._

_ "What is 'it'?"_

_ Nightstalker laughed, a little nervous on the inside. Sure they were familiar now, and because of that they were beginning to experiment more and more with their kinky positions, but she wanted to experiment out of the berth room. Only, she hoped she wasn't overstepping boundaries or she could be in some deep slag._

_ "'It'," she told him, "is you."_

_ He smirked, crossing his arms. "What is this game you're playing?"_

_ "Tag," she repeated. "I used to play it with Fli-Ni." She pouted her lip and leaned forward, cajoling, "Now, are you game? Or does Megatron think he can't tag me?"_

_ Highly amused and intrigued, Megatron deeply arched a brow. "Is that a challenge?"_

_ To make it as blatant as possible, Nightstalker turned and stuck her aft out. "You. Can't. Catch. Me." And she smacked her butt once before yipping and transforming in the hall, darting away in her jet form. Not even a second later she heard Megatron's engines blast in the halls and knew the warlord was giving chase._

_ Squealing, Nightstalker zipped through the halls, making passing Decepticons swear as they passed. When she banked at the last second down one hall, she thought for a second she had lost Megatron, but then, she whirled around the corner and found him barreling down the opposite side. She screeched and turned out, banking sharper and faster than the bigger 'Con. He missed her by an inch as she fled outside, turned her nose up, and shot up into the sky._

_ She swerved and dodged him as long as she could, but the more experienced warrior easily caught her. He transformed midair and slammed into her, catching her speedy alt form. Nightstalker, trapped by his arms, squealed and transformed, trying to get away as he landed them on the edge of the nearest building._

_ He bent over, pressing down on her and halting her thrashing. Nightstalker giggled breathlessly and then he rasped huskily in her audio, "Tag. You're it."_

_ Before she could indulge in that suggestive voice, he dropped her off the edge of the building. Shrieking in girlish delight, Nightstalker transformed and caught herself before darting off after Megatron. The warlord evaded her easily for the first few kliks before Nightstalker realized she would never catch him like this. Banking around a different curve and weaving between the buildings of Kaon, Nightstalker squeezed into an old hiding spot she hadn't used since she played with Nightflier. When Megatron came down this alley, the sound waves would bounce off the walls and hit her. The second she heard the sound waves of his engine, she would throw herself out and, theoretically, land on him._

_ She hunkered down, crouched out of sight, and readied herself. It had to work. Nightflier had done it one too many times for it to be THAT special of a skill!_

_ Then, she heard the telltale growl of Megatron's engine. Jumping out, for half a klik, her spark hit the back of her throat in the terrifying thrill of freefall, and then, she hit something—or SOMEONE—hard._

_ Nightstalker squealed in triumph, scrabbling at his wing to hold on. "Tag! You're it!"_

_ Before she could get away, Megatron had transformed again, grabbed her leg, and landed on a catwalk over the road. He arched a brow at her upside down, giggling form. "I'm impressed, Nights. I did not think you could catch me! How did you do that?"_

_ She threw him a wink. "My secret."_

_ His lips slanted up roguishly. "Well, just for that," and he flipped her right side up so she landed on her peds, "I'll grace you with a head start."_

_ The threatening waggle of his brows should have tipped her off. Instead, she just grinned and shouted, "I don't need it!" and took off._

_ She raced off. It took him a moment, but after the head start he pursued her doggedly, following her weaving between the buildings._

_ With alarm, Nightstalker realized he was catching up. Instead, she ducked inside a building she recognized, flew straight up to the ceiling and above the walkways to transform and squeeze into a small ventilation shaft that led to the roof. Wildly, she slipped inside it and crawled up. Megatron's arm reached inside, just barely missing her peds._

_ Nightstalker laughed at him, grinning down between her legs. "Missed me!" she hollered, voice echoing in the shaft before she hurried as fast as she could to the top. He was too big to fit inside, so his only hope was to—_

_ Nightstalker shrieked and ducked when his servo reached down into the top of the shaft. How did he get up there so fast?_

_ "Give up, Nightstalker," he teased her back. She heard the faint tremors of a laugh in his voice. "I've got you trapped."_

_ Pursing her lips, Nightstalker didn't respond, optics narrowing at the opening above her. Then, frantically, she lunged up and out, scrambling to her peds to take off, but he grabbed her, pulling her back against his chest, one large arm pinning her to him without escape. Nightstalker squealed._

_ "Tag . . . You're it."_

_ She shivered at his husky tone of voice, and then, his mouth began to kiss down the back of her neck, glossia playing around the sensitive edges of her wings. Play fun gone, Nightstalker arched, whimpering at the feel of heat she thought she would never get tired of._

_ "Uhhh . . . Right there . . . Please . . ."_

_ He chuckled, a servo trailing up her side, and then, the scene changed. It wasn't that playful day they had played tag the first time. It didn't continue like it was supposed to, with dangerous, kinky sex outside on the roof where they had almost gotten caught. Instead, she felt him flip her around and slam her against a tree._

No . . . No, this isn't how it happened!

_For a second, terror overtook her. She arched and screamed, knowing even before it happened what happened next. She felt him penetrate—felt her walls ripping again. Dark laughter squirmed across her audio receptors with tasting licks._

_ She screamed. She screamed and thrashed, but it was happening again. She couldn't stop it. Agony poured through her and fear consumed everything she knew._

_ Cliffjumper was screaming her name._

_ "Let me go!" She shrieked and thrashed against him, and when she lifted her hand, she felt him snap her wrists again. All feeling but pain stopped, and she couldn't move them, couldn't move herself. He was suffocating her._

_ The sawing in her pelvic region wouldn't stop. He bit her, smacked her, abusive and cruel, tearing her down to little pathetic bits._

_ Cliffjumper's terrified and tormented voice raked across her audios. _"Nightstalker! Nights! Please!"

_She curled, arched, jerked, felt herself raped from the inside out, beaten and bloodied. She drowned in the darkness as Megatron pinned her there. She couldn't escape him._

"Nightstalker! Please! Wake up! Wake up, please, I'm begging you!"

_ She felt one of her arms snap, but this time, because she was shocked and confused at the new words Cliffjumper said, she didn't feel the pain._

What? What is he . . .

_And then, she understood._

I'm dreaming!

_ Megatron roared, striking fear in her spark, and she screamed when his hand yanked off her spark chamber doors, going for that sacred area she didn't want anyone to touch but Cliffjumper. He was trying to smother her, trying to force her to stay in the dream. It was terrifying the power he held over her—he was everywhere, kept his claws deep in the depths of her soul._

_ It was like she couldn't see anything but those soulless red optics. She couldn't even think without him interrupting her. In her thoughts. In her dreams. He'd taken over her._

"Nightstalker! Wake up! Wake up, slag it! Please! Wake up! Nights!"

_She screamed, a splintering sound that poured from the depths of her spark when he began to grope her chassis, trying to take her spark. Nightstalker thrashed against him, shrieking and struggling._

_ Not her spark . . . Not her spark . . . She wouldn't let him have her spark—!_

* * *

><p>Nightstalker shrieked, fighting her assailant that had his servos clamped firmly around her wrists. She kicked and screamed and bit, thrashing against him, fighting tooth and nail against the damage that had been done to her.<p>

He shook her. "Nights! Nights, stop it! Stop it! Nights, it's me! Cliffjumper! It's me!"

A garbled sob hit the roof of her mouth. He pinned her hands together with one hand as she slumped without energy, turning her face away with tears that seized through her chassis. He collected her broken and limp form to his chassis, strong arms holding her close though she quaked and jerked violently in his arms.

"Shh, shh, Nights, it's me. Cliffjumper. Shh, I'm here, I won't let him hurt you again, I promise . . . Shh . . . You're all right, we're safe . . ."

She shook her head, choking around her crying. She wildly thrashed her head. No. No, she wasn't. She wouldn't ever be safe. He was always there. In her mind. Ready to rape her again the second she closed her optics for recharge. He lurked. He skulked. He perverted. He gored her spark and mind with his poison. Pain. Fear.

She couldn't ever escape him.

She couldn't ever heal.

She couldn't ever forget.

Cliffjumper's whimsical nothings whispered in her ears meant nothing, but provided a desperate mercy from the words that lacerated. The sound of his deep voice comforted. The soothing sound chased away the claws that cleaved through her soul. His arms tightened; her pillars of strength and an enclave of protection. They warded off the perversion in her mind, gracing her and saving her from the spike that mutilated and the fear that consumed.

He patiently shushed her, a hand kneading that sensitive spot between her wings to loosen the circuits taunt with stress. Gentle kisses like misting raindrops feathered over her face, taking away her shuddering tears and soothing her trembling lips. A shiver convulsed her frame, and his hands chafed her arms, warming her, consoling her.

"Shh . . . Easy, Nights. I'm right here. I won't let him hurt you. I won't let him touch you. Shh, you're safe." He kissed her temple again, stroking her cheek gently. His thumb wiped her tears away, murmuring, "Easy does it, Nights . . ." He shushed her again, and Nightstalker shook her head, only able to think one thing. And that one thing was what she blurted out.

"I love you!"

Cliffjumper blinked, taken off guard by the abruptness of her statement. "Nights?"

"I love you!" she gasped again. She collapsed into his chassis, pressing her forehead to him and wings sagging low as she gave away the secret she had held for the past several days. Hot tears dribbled down her cheeks. "I love you, I love you, I—I love you . . ."

With a soft groan, she felt him lift her and then cherishing lips pressed to hers. The heat of his passions crippled her will, and she melted into him, desperately searching for an answer she was afraid to receive. He broke apart from her, and the first thing he rasped back was,

"I love you too. Oh Nights, I—I love you so much—" and he interrupted his confession with several more incessant kisses. He smiled, throat jumping as he whispered, "Gosh, Nights, I've wanted to tell you for so long, I just—I didn't know if you were ready to hear it."

"It's all I want to hear," she whispered back. His arms constricted to nearly crushing as he rocked her, laughing softly in amazement.

His lips brushed an audio receptor. "Want to know when I fell in love with you?" he husked. When he received a little nod, he murmured, "I knew it when you disappeared back to the Decepticons. I just . . . I couldn't get you off my mind. I was so worried I couldn't think of anything else. That was when . . . I realized I didn't want to keep living this life without you."

Thick tears clogged up her vocalizer. She pressed a crushing kiss to his lips, heat sizzling through every circuit of her body when his servos grabbed her, holding her body to his. "Sorry it's not that romantic for me," she gasped. "But I only figured it out the other night when you told me you'd protect me from anything." She kissed him hard again, tasting him, almost violent in her kisses as rabid passion tore through her.

Cliffjumper parted for a second with a laugh, chiding, "We've certainly come a long way from the torture chambers."

Their mouths seized each other again, and Nightstalker felt his glossia slide in, tasting, exploring. She groaned, panting sharply as he trailed hot kisses down her neck.

"Cliff—Cliff, please—" and her spark chamber doors sprang open immediately, humming and crackling with raw need. "Take me again . . . Please!"

He shifted, turning her over on her back with a grin playing at the edges of his mouth. He kissed her and husked in her audios,

"My pleasure."

* * *

><p>Nightflier hurried back to where he and Smokescreen were holed up with Optimus, and he landed outside where they were underground. He was just about to start stomping on the ground in the effort to see if Smokescreen would hear and come get him with the Phase Shifter when said bot's head poked up between his peds.<p>

Nightflier yelped in shock, stumbling back and Smokescreen yelped too, ducking back underground. Then, a second later, Smokescreen phased through the ground and blinked at him. Nightflier blinked back.

"You scared me."

"You scared me."

Their voices overlapped. Smokescreen reached down, and he helped Nightflier back to his peds.

"Where were you?"

"Where are you going?"

When they both spoke at the same time again, they both laughed sheepishly and grinned.

"We've really gotta stop—"

"We need to stop—"

They spoke at the same time again. Finally, they held up their servos.

"You first."

"You first."

For some reason, it struck Nightflier as funny. He began to laugh, and because his laughter was infectious, Smokescreen began to laugh too until they were both doubled up with tears streaming down their faces.

Finally, Smokescreen was the first to get back under control. "Seriously," he told Nightflier, "you've gotta stop talking at the same time I do."

Flicking tears away, Nightflier shook his head. "Sorry. Primus, I don't even know why that was so funny."

Smokescreen smiled grimly. "Well, I think almost any little thing is going to be funny at this point."

Nightflier's amusement died at that moment. He cleared his vocalizer. "So, uh . . . Where were you going?"

"Uh . . . The Decepticon citadel?"

His optics popped. "What for?"

"Optimus woke up," Smokescreen said. He jerked his thumb behind him as if to point to him. "He wanted me to get the Forge of Solus Prime."

Nightflier blinked. "What's that?"

"A hammer. Made by Solus, one of the Thirteen Primes." Smokescreen shifted, eager to get moving. "He can fix himself with it. Did you find Ratchet? What happened to you?"

"No I didn't," Nightflier filled him in quickly. "Got waylaid and found Arcee and Jack. They're good, and they're trying to help find Ratchet. Here," and he waved Smokescreen off, "let me get the Forge."

"No, I've got it," Smokescreen said quickly.

Nightflier shook his head. "My function is espionage," Nightflier reminded him.

"The Forge is bigger than you." Nightflier stopped, blinking up at the mech with him. Smokescreen shrugged. "I don't know if you could drag it that far."

"Probably not," Nightflier admitted. "Take me back down to Optimus? I want to give him the good news."

Smokescreen nodded and took him down. Nightflier watched Smokescreen run through the wall, and he worried. Getting past Soundwave was no easy feat.

So he waited. He sat next to the peds of the Prime cross-legged, bouncing his legs in worried boredom. Maybe he should have just done another flight route for Ratchet. But he wouldn't have had the energon to get back. He was going to have to go on another raid in the Decepticon energon stores. He'd burned through it all flying and then lost even more fighting Starscream. Optimus was still leaking. He probably needed another dose to get him to hold on anyways.

He listened to the strained, labored vents of the Prime. He looked him up and down again. That kind of damage . . . He looked down in his lap, letting his helm hang. At this rate, he was going to die. He hoped that Forge thing Smokescreen was bringing was going to work. Either that, or they needed Ratchet, and they needed him now.

His mind returned to one thing. Nightstalker. She was alive. Excitement and relief and love poured through him. She was alive! She was out there somewhere, and Cliffjumper was protecting her. He wanted to see her—he wanted to see her so badly! To know she was out there was frustrating, and he futilely reached out to her with his spark, determined to find her somewhere. All that he got in return was a vast nothingness, numb, and empty from a long dead connection.

Suddenly sensing optics on him, Nightflier lifted his head. Optimus's head had lolled his way, and blue optics flickered at him. Nightflier turned respectfully to him, getting on one knee and bowing slightly to him.

"Prime."

There was no response, but he heard faint words catching on his lips. Nightflier jumped in helpfully at the slight cinch in the Prime's brow. "Nightflier of Kaon, sixth addition of the Protectobots, warrior class, function: espionage, reporting from Kalis, Cybertron, sir," he designated himself to the Prime. He swallowed. "I'm Nightstalker's brother."

He heard his intakes hitch when he took the news. Nightflier nodded to him. "I . . . want to thank you for trying to save me back on Kaon."

The Prime's cycles shuddered. His lips shook. "I . . . did not . . ."

Hearing his struggling, Nightflier nodded again, letting him know he understood. "It was the thought that counted," he said quietly, kneeling at his side. "I'm . . . humbled that you were willing to save someone as insignificant as myself."

The Prime's optics flickered. His chest heaved as he forced the words out. "No life . . . is insignificant . . . I . . . did not realize it then. Not until . . . after I saw there was nothing . . . left of you . . ."

Nightflier shook his head, dipping his helm. "I was just a street kid. There wasn't much worth saving. Not compared to you. You were Prime."

Optimus's slow and strained words faltered past trembling lips. "And a Prime . . . must realize . . . he protects ALL of Primus's creations . . ." Nightflier lifted his head, meeting Optimus's flickering gaze. He felt a shiver go down his back and all the way through the tip of his wings. "No one is without a second chance . . . No one is insignificant . . . the innocent . . . ALL life . . . is worth saving . . ."

Nightflier swallowed, dropping his optics, unable to look into those unfathomable pools of crystal that contained so much wisdom. He nodded, rasping, "Yes sir. I understand," though Optimus hadn't meant to reprimand him. Catching the Prime's optics drifting to his crippled wing and the brace that let it function, he shifted and tucked his wing out of sight. "An old wound," he told him quietly. "It doesn't need to concern you."

He probably sounded a bit cruel. But he didn't mean it cruelly. He just didn't want the Prime lying his being crippled on his spark as well. He didn't need to. It was a wound of past long taken care of by First Aid, and his wing worked perfectly fine now with his brace.

Nightflier looked up quickly, noting Optimus's drooping eyelids. "Prime," he said, and his optics fluttered open. "I saw Jack and Arcee," he told him. Something about just mentioning them made the Prime's face soften; made his optics warm; gave him some sort of peace. "They're fine," he said. He smiled. "They're just fine. They're helping me look for Ratchet."

His labored breaths hurt just to hear them. "And . . . the others?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I haven't found them yet." When Optimus's optics sank shut again, Nightflier's spark started. "But I will!" he burst, worried sick for the waning Prime. Optimus didn't open his optics again, and Nightflier pressed, "I'll find them, I swear. They'll be just fine, we're all gonna make it out of this safely, I promise. I'll do I can for you, sir, I promise."

He didn't respond. All Nightflier received for his desperate promise was the gritty sound of his clogged venting. Shaking, Nightflier bent over the Prime's ped.

_I know I've never been too religious or whatever you call it, Primus, but . . . Don't forsake us. Please. We need him. We . . . He's our Prime. Without him . . . Please. Don't forsake us. Don't forsake him. We need him, please . . . Save him._

* * *

><p>Nightstalker was tired of walking.<p>

She stomped along, itching to get moving. Itching to fly. After so many days and so many weeks without having flown, the uncontrollable urge nearly blindsided her and tipped her processor. Her servos clenched. Her wings perked.

Cliffjumper's hand reached over, covering hers. Warm. Strong. "Easy, Nights."

"Easy?" she snapped. She wrenched her hand away, sparks dancing in her orange optics. "You take it easy! I haven't flown in weeks and weeks and I just want to stretch my wings for a second and you won't let me!"

He stopped with her, the foliage of the trees above covering the moonlight and plunging them into deep darkness as they finally crossed the Tennessee to Missouri border. "Nights, I—"

"I just want to fly for a second, just once around the border!" She jabbed her finger into his chassis, making him take a step backwards. "And YOU can't make the excuse that I'm not cleared to fly because I've been cleared all day and my motor lines feel fine so you can stuff it!"

Instead of intimidating him, her anger just made a smile play at the edges of his mouth that he tried to vainly fight back. "You're hanging out too much with Miko if you're saying to stuff—"

"And I can fraggin well fly!" Nightstalker snapped for good measure, taking another step forward and hitting his chest. "It's nighttime, and no one's gonna see me, so you can shut it about the Decepticons finding me!"

He just grinned and shook his head, and his servo took her hand. "C'mon," he said, tugging her to the side and sitting down. "Let's watch the rest of Dreadwing's video."

"I don't want to watch it!" Nightstalker snapped, locking her knees and refusing to sit. She was so boiling mad right now she was sure her metal was shining!

"You don't want to have the rest of the story?"

"I know what the rest of it is!" she snapped. "Clearly he disowned us because of me and he moved on to better things! I don't need to hear it! He can keep his fragging secrets!"

Cliffjumper locked his hold on her hand tighter when she tugged and jerked to get away. He arched a brow. "Now c'mon, Nights. You won't give the mech a chance? At least hear him out."

"Well he's dead," Nightstalker snarled, "so I don't see the point since it's not going to change anything! Let go!" She hit his wrist, trying to pry his fingers off of her. "Let go!"

Instead, he just yanked her down. Nightstalker squeaked and sprawled mortifyingly into his lap as he said conversationally, "Let's just calm down. Watching his video will for sure get your mind off flying for a bit."

"Let go!" she shouted. She twisted and turned and tried to get away, but he stubbornly kept his hold on her. "Let me go, you fragging—I hate you!"

His arms locked around her, and he chuckled in her audio receptor. "I'm pretty sure it was just yesterday we finally proclaimed our love for each other."

"Shut up." She squirmed. "Let go."

He nuzzled her audio. "You sure are moody today."

"And for good fragging reason!" she snapped, struggling against his affectionate hold. "Let me fragging go already! I'm flying!"

Cliffjumper's hold tightened to almost crushingly painful. "Easy, Nights," he husked quietly in her ear. "It's just a bad day."

"You're telling me?" she all but screeched in his ear. She had to physically restrain herself from hitting him. "You're the one making it worse! I'm tired, I'm worried, I just want to fragging fly, and I'm scared, and you're just making everything worse!"

"I know," he murmured quietly. He didn't relinquish his hold on her, but a servo reached up to knead between her wings soothingly. "I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

"Yes," he said with a light chuckle, "I am." His humor faded. He bunched her up tighter, nuzzling the top of her helm. "I'm just worried. We've done good to avoid Decepticon optics for so long, and I don't want to jeopardize that. Not to mention that we're both running low on fuel again, and we can't have you burning through it. All right?"

She hit his chest weakly. "I want to fly."

"I know."

She hit him again. Tears pricked her optics. "I want Ratchet."

Cliffjumper closed his optics, chest paining. "I know."

"I want Bumblebee."

"I know . . ."

Her wings perked in irritation. "Say something else, slaggit."

"Okay."

She grumbled, but it was to fight off an unwilling laugh. Nightstalker sat up to look at him, and that mischievous little twinkle refused to leave his optics. She huffed and extended her arm. "Fine. Let's finish watching the fragging video." As he hooked their wrists together for mutual connection, she flopped back down, hugging him. "I don't know how much more of this crap I can stomach . . ."

The first thing the video greeted her with was Dreadwing's angry stare. His last words "I saw you," weren't the last of the cutting words for her. Immediately he kept on with, "Some wretch from a different father, and I knew you were not mine." Dreadwing's servos clenched, and he stood in his agitation. "You ruined everything! Ampere had forsaken me and turned her back on me, took another mech instead. She cut my spark open with that betrayal. And I hated you for it—" He shook his head. "You, it was always you I hated. I was angry at Ampere, but nothing could compare to the hate I infested in you."

Nightstalker sat quietly, taking the brunt of his hate for what it was. Wasn't that common? That people hated her? But Cliffjumper's arms tightened on her, and he muttered, "You were innocent. You didn't do anything. It was Ampere and Starscream he should be blaming. And himself."

"So I left," Dreadwing continued almost without pause, servos shaking. "I left, and I vowed to never come back. If she denied my existence, then I denied hers. My pride came back with a vengeance, and I would not offer myself back to the femme who disowned and committed adultery against me." He shook his head again, pressing the heel of his hand to his helm. "I lived in anger and despair for what I had lost."

There was a pause as Dreadwing's wings finally loosened from their tense position, and then, he finally said quietly, "But my love for Nightflier never ceased. I knew he was alive, and I knew he was well, and I took that to spark. Our bond was fragile and weak, because the mother's disconnection from me hurt his ability to commune with me, but I was comforted in always knowing he was there."

He shifted. His brow darkened. "It . . . I am not sure what happened. One day, on my military leave, I chose to come back. I wanted to see my son, and Ampere would not stop me. But when I made it to the apartment, no one was there. I asked the owner where they had gone. He said he did not know. They were behind on payments, and he wouldn't allow them back.

"They were out on the streets somewhere. I was convinced of it." Dreadwing took a ragged breath, rasping, "I should have known she was still faithful to me then. If she truly had forsaken me, she would have begun selling her body again to provide for her children. But she didn't . . ." His vents tightened again. He shook his head. "I panicked. I began looking for her, and Skyquake helped me, but we couldn't find her anywhere. Not Nightflier either." There was a palpable pause. "Not even you."

Nightstalker let her wings droop when Cliffjumper began to knead that special spot between her wings. "We were ordered to come back to the front before we found anyone," he finally murmured. "I tried to comfort myself with the idea that you were all still in Kaon somewhere, and I tried to trust Ampere to take care of my child." He sank back down on the berth heavily. He started to say something and stopped. His optics flicked up to the screen. "You said Ampere died of sickness . . . If that was true, then . . . I have to assume that she died somewhere around this time."

His voice cracked. He cleared his vocalizer and whispered, "But my fear didn't end there. It wasn't much longer before Megatron ordered the attack on Kaon . . . with the order to kill any femmes and sparklings."

A harsh breath seized. "I was terrified. He wanted me to lead the assault, and I could not say no. So I led it, but very quickly I abandoned my post. I searched the streets, the buildings, everywhere, calling for my son—" His voice cracked again. He trembled, dropping his helm. "I couldn't feel Ampere in my spark with a broken bond. But I called for her too. I tried to communicate with Nightflier through my spark, but he was panicked, terrified, and in pain. He didn't know where he was. And then—then he—" His claws tightened on his helm.

"I felt his spark go out."

Nightstalker shivered, knowing the feeling all too well. Cliffjumper soothed her softly, stroking her wings and kissing her helm. After a moment, Dreadwing rasped, "The force of that brought me to my knees. I almost gave in right there, but . . . I held on for Ampere. I tricked myself with the false hope that maybe—just maybe she was still alive somewhere . . ."

He shook his head. "I was wrong," he said haggardly. "I never saw her again. I never even found Nightflier's body. When I came back to the Decepticons after fruitless search for my family . . . Megatron asked for me. I had to go to him. He demanded to know why I had abandoned my post. He knew. Even before I confessed, he somehow knew. Most likely Soundwave . . ." Dreadwing shook his head, swallowing tightly. "I confessed I had a spark mate and son. But he didn't need to worry about that anymore. They were dead, and . . . nothing would impede my loyalty to him."

Nightstalker swallowed at the empty defeat in his voice. Finally, he said quietly, "When Skyquake died, the only thing kept me going was hate and revenge. I should have let myself die when he did, spark break tearing me apart, but I was too stubborn and prideful. And then, when I saw you . . . I thought I saw Ampere. For one moment, I thought I was looking at her, and then, as you're helm registered, and the differences . . . I knew it was you." He took a tight vent. "And I hated you all the more because you had survived the slaughter in Kaon and the ones I loved had died."

There was a lagging pause as Dreadwing controlled the emotions running rampant through his chassis. Finally, he murmured, "I'm going to give the Autobots the Forge of Solus Prime. The disgrace of what Starscream has done . . . what Megatron has lied to me about . . . is too much. I will kill Starscream or I will die trying." His optics flicked up. "So whichever of us you see next, know the other is dead."

Nightstalker felt her wings deflate and droop. Starscream had led the assault on the Autobot base. Dreadwing was long gone to this world.

"I am sorry," he finally said quietly. "Sorry I could not forgive you for a crime that is not your own . . . I am sorry for what I have done . . . For my accursed pride . . ." His servo clenched. "I am sorry I ruined this family."

Nightstalker watched as he stood, wings drooped low as the video abruptly ended. There was a beat of silence, and Nightstalker soundlessly disconnected from Cliffjumper. He vented quietly and put a kiss on her helm.

"Are you all right?"

She shrugged, curled up into his neck. "As well as can be. At least I know what happened."

They sat in quiet silence for a minute. Nightstalker tried to ignore all the gritty details of her broken family's past, but she couldn't get them out of her mind. As much as she didn't want to think about it, didn't want to dwell on it, it was taxing her processor and consuming her thoughts.

Finally, she sat up with a slight huff and a knowing smile. Cliffjumper arched a brow.

"I know that look."

"You sure do," she said, and she leaned forward, kissing him deeply. She let her claws feather over his strong arms, dipping in between his armor.

He broke the kiss and gave her a look. "You want to do this NOW of all times?" he asked, stunned that she could move from a tragic ending to horny in the space of several minutes.

"I don't want to think about it," she said truthfully. Instead, she let her palms drag flat against his chassis until she cupped his heating cod. Leaning in to his audio receptor, she husked, "Now . . . You know what I want, Cliff. Please . . . I want you to fill me up . . ."

He chuckled, and his hands drew lines of fire down to her aft plating before flicking it off. He turned her on her back, fingers already gripping between her aft cheeks. "You know," he rumbled back while kissing down her neck. She arched. He smirked. "I'm very sure that all this interfacing is burning through our reserves too."

Nightstalker laughed thickly as he said that and proceeded to ravish her despite the knowledge. His mouth seized her, tasting and devouring, hands exploring and teasing. Nightstalker reached up and grabbed the horns on his head, and he stiffened, gritting a gasp.

She pulled his helm close, looking into his optics. "I'm riding you tonight, cowboy," she husked.

Cliffjumper chuckled and moved in for the killing kiss. "Well, as long as you keep your hands right there—"

And then, he paused. The whine of engines filled the air. Drawing closer—

"Someone's here!" Cliffjumper hissed. He had her on her peds in a second, slapping her aft plate back into her hand as he shoved her into the shadows. Nightstalker felt her throat bob in fear as she shrank as small as she could, putting her aft plate back on. Cliffjumper drew his ion cannons as they crouched beneath the leafy treetops that prevented the ship from landing.

After a minute with the great space shuttle hovering above them, Nightstalker finally called to Cliffjumper, "I've got to go up and see who it is!"

His hand clamped down on her arm. "No! It could be Decepticons!"

She frowned. "If it were, wouldn't they have blasted us already?" When Cliffjumper pressed his lips mulishly, she felt prompted to add, "Look, they can't land because of the trees! If it's danger, I'll be right back, okay?"

He gritted his jaw, but nodded. "Be careful."

Nightstalker nodded. Transforming, she took to the air and flipped around to the front windshield of the ship. The pilot was large—vaguely the same build as Optimus, but those optics were different, as was the set of his face plates. But, she saw someone inside that made her transform and land on the front of the ship.

"Arcee!" she cried. She could barely hear herself above the sound of the ship's great engines, and she waved in excitement, grinning widely. What reinforcements! "Arcee! Jack!"

She watched as the mech exchanged a few words with Arcee, and then Arcee pointed down. Nightstalker nodded, and she transformed, flying below the ship and fighting the winds. The hatch opened, and it revealed Arcee hanging on and squinting. Nightstalker landed next to her.

"We can't land here!" Arcee shouted above the roar of the engines. She pointed. "We're going to head about 5 miles out that way! There's a big enough clearing for us to land! Meet us there!"

Nightstalker nodded, yelling back, "Got it!"

Transforming, she flew back down to Cliffjumper as the great ship soared off in the distance. She grinned and squealed, throwing her arms around him.

"Cliff! It's Arcee and Jack! The gang's getting back together!"


	54. Faith

**Author's Note:**

**As usual, show lots of love with the reviews! I think you guys will have a lot to say about this chapter! :)**

* * *

><p>"RAF!"<p>

After a terrifying chase with the newest Decepticon addition, a Predacon dragon, Ultra Magnus as Nightstalker so learned, was leader of the Wreckers, Optimus's right hand man, and the highest ranking commander they had right now. His ship's instruments had tracked their life signals, picking up Arcee and Jack, Bulkhead and Miko, Wheeljack, and Cliffjumper and herself. The last two life signals made her spark flutter in fear. Optimus, Ratchet, Smokescreen, or Bumblebee?

She shoved Cliffjumper aside, spark swelling to almost bursting as Bumblebee chirped excitedly, *Nights?* and she had thrown her arms around him. He knelt, squeezing her unbearably tight with a high pitched coo. *Nights!*

"Bee!" She squeezed so tightly around his neck that he gave a mock choke and another laugh. "I was worried!"

*I missed you!* he said back. He swung her back and forth, and Nightstalker laughed, struggling to keep her legs from flailing.

"I missed you too." She put a kiss on the side of his cheek before he finally let go, and she looked down with a smile. "Raf!" Kneeling, she scooped up the human much in the way she had done Jack and Miko. Greetings floated above her as she smiled down at the young human, pushing his glasses back up on his nose correctly and tweaking his hair. "I missed you bunches."

"I missed you too," he said. He grinned. "I'll have to tell you about my cousin! He customized Bee's paint job for me!"

Nightstalker smiled. "Oh, did he?" She looked up, finally noticing that Bumblebee was wearing a snazzy new black paintjob that dominated his cute yellow. It made him look older, but he wore it well.

Then, Nightstalker noticed the other Autobot they were picking up. Her spark leapt to her throat, and she ran up to him, jumping up and throwing her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Instinctively, he caught her as she pressed her face into his neck cables.

"R-Ratchet . . ."

Anything else she could say was choked by the thick tears clogging up her throat. She was swallowed up by a giant hug before he cleared his throat, asking, "Are you all right?" She felt him start to try to pry her away.

She latched tighter. "I'm perfectly fine, quit it with the scans!" She shivered slightly, burrowing as close as she could. "Just hold me. I . . . I missed you . . ."

She heard him give a soft, defeated vent before his arms wrapped around her. Then, he looked up suddenly. "Ultra Magnus?"

"Doctor."

He tried for another moment to pry her off, but when she fluttered her wings and refused to let go, he obviously swept it under the rug and just proceeded to approach Ultra Magnus with a seeker clinging to him. The commander arched a brow, but Ratchet just waved a hand, saying, "Processor health." Which, in a way, it was very true. "The communications link needs further calibrations to be compatible with Autobot frequencies," he updated the commander automatically. "The ground bridge, however, is fully operational."

"THAT would have come in handy," Miko suddenly chimed in sarcastically, "when robo-dragon was trying to eat us for breakfast."

At the very reminder of the Predacon, Nightstalker clenched around Ratchet tightly, prompting him to pull at her arms to loosen her.

Finally, tapping a finger, Ultra Magnus had to ask, "The indigenous population of this planet . . . Do they all display the same disregard for authority?"

Ratchet shook his head, putting a comforting hand on Nightstalker's back to knead between her wings absently. "No. Mostly just Miko."

On the tail of his words came the roar of a jet engine in the air. Nightstalker winced and cowered when Ultra Magnus reacted so quickly, drawing his weapons in a spark beat.

"No!"

"Don't shoot!"

"It's Fowler! He's with us!"

As the jet began to coast in for the landing, Ratchet finally huffed and pulled at her wrists, saying, "Nightstalker, really!"

She let him pry her off and set her on her peds. She smiled sheepishly at him, blinking back some lubricant in her optics. "Sorry, I just . . . I'm really glad you're okay."

"Oh for the love of—"He cut off shortly with a mildly irritated vent and he cushioned his words with a secret and quick kiss pecked to the side of her helm. "Straighten up. I don't know how Ultra Magnus's first impression of you was."

_I'm the queen of bad first impressions,_ Nightstalker thought cheekily to herself, but she also blushed ridiculously at his affectionate gesture that went unseen at the back of the pack of Autobots. She took several steps forward to see Fowler and June, and the nurse looked up and waved. Nightstalker waved back.

"The only signals Ultra Magnus was able to isolate are standing right here," Arcee said.

"Maybe his scanner's faulty," Wheeljack muttered snarkily.

Bulkhead frowned. "So the kid's unaccounted for."

"Smokescreen bridged out unaccompanied," Ratchet told them. "Only Optimus knows where. And Optimus remained behind, to . . . destroy the ground bridge, to . . . ensure that everyone else made it to safety."

Arcee bit her lip. Jack glanced up at her. "I . . . watched the base go down," Agent Fowler told them. He shook his head. "No one or thing walked out of there."

"Not that we could see."

"Even IF Prime survived, I'm not sure we can afford to wait for him to show up. Not with Megatron holding us hostage from his high and mighty perch of Darkmount!"

Arcee glanced nervously to Nightstalker whose wide optics pinned up to Ultra Magnus when he took several steps forward. She shrank a little, intimidated by his size and commanding authority. "I would be inclined to agree with the native life form. We must stop Megatron. With or without Optimus Prime. We must do everything in our power to ensure Megatron's downfall, but we will need to be smart about it."

"Whoa!" Wheeljack cut in again, irked and optics narrowing. "Who put shoulder pads in command?"

"Ultra Magnus is the only logical choice," Ratchet told him. "He was trained by Optimus and served as his commanding officer throughout the War for Cybertron."

"Now, unless there is any further objection," and Arcee witnessed Nightstalker shrink even smaller—as if to disappear—and hide behind Bulkhead, "soldier, please follow me."

Jack made another oblique gesture, nodding his head. Arcee shook her head. Not now. The knowledge that Optimus was on his death bed would do them no good right now. It would not change the outcome of their plans, and it would only worry the others. Even IF Optimus needed Ratchet, there was no way to be able to tell the CMO where to go. Nightflier had to come back and show them where he, Smokescreen, and Optimus were holed up.

As they filed into Ultra Magnus's ship, Arcee's optics flickered back to the gun-shy Nightstalker. On top of that, she didn't know how the information would impact Nightstalker, that her brother was alive. The time wasn't prudent. Not with them gearing up for a battle like this. It would have to wait.

Nightstalker blinked at the storage of weapons he showed them. "Autobots, take your pick."

"Now you're speaking my language! Sir."

Her pulse skyrocketed. They got to PICK? She peeked from behind the others, eyeing the whip she could see from a mile away. It wasn't like her whips. The handle was bigger, bulkier, but with a fashion like that, she knew it contained more volts. Hers was an old style anyway—

And then, as the bots began to grab the ones they liked, she saw Wheeljack grab the whip.

Her optics narrowed.

_Oh no he doesn't!_

She reached up, tapping his shoulder as he grabbed another gun with his other hand, holstering the whip on his hip. "What?"

She arched a brow. Well, if he didn't even want to say hello. "You took my pick."

His brows lifted high. He glanced at the gun in his hand before eyeing her critically. "I dunno about that one," he said. "It's mighty big for you."

Nightstalker rolled her optics, knowing good and well he was playing her. "Not that one, slag for brains, the whip. C'mon now, hand it over. Be a good sport."

He grinned at her leisurely. "You're a little spitfire, aren't you? Well, safe to say, I got my hands on it first, and there's plenty else to choose from. Besides, I want it."

She grabbed his wrist when he tried to turn away. "I want it MORE," she stressed, arching a brow and daring him to argue with her.

Wheeljack smirked, taking some sort of pleasure in plaguing her with his existence. He looked down on her easily, intimidating her with his size. "Do you, now? I bet you couldn't even take it from me even IF you wanted it that bad."

Oho, was that a CHALLENGE? "Wheeljack," a commanding tone cut across the confines of his ship.

Before he could say anything more, Nightstalker held up a hand to him. "Easy, Ultra Magnus. I can handle this one myself." Oddly, he didn't say anything to that and the apparent disregard for "sir" but instead arched a brow as he watched the confrontation. Everyone but the two contenders glanced hesitantly towards the commander, wondering why he didn't press the issue with Nightstalker.

"Like you said," Nightstalker said, taking a posturing step forward until she was almost face first in his chassis as she craned her neck back to look at the swaggering Wrecker. "There's plenty of other choices. You can hand that little trinket over to me."

"As if," Wheeljack snorted. He wagged the gun at her. "You've already got yourself a set of whips, femme. Spread the love."

She stood on her toes and gave him a mocking smile. "What love? You asked me to take it from you, so I did."

He blinked uncomprehendingly at her for a second, and then he jumped back, optics flaring as he looked down at his now-empty hip. He looked back at her to where she saucily twirled the whip. His face relaxed into a grin.

"All right, keep it! Because I for one don't know how you managed to steal that right from under my nose."

"Trade secret," she snarked back, holstering it on her own hip. Show over, they began to filter out of the ship, and when Ultra Magnus just looked at her, she arched a brow at him and her lips twitched as she fought back a smirk. She shrugged slightly as she left the ship, and Cliffjumper met her outside. He held up a fist.

"Nice."

She smiled back, bumping his fist. "Thank you."

"Knew I fell for you for a reason. I think you even had ol' Magnus tongue tied."

* * *

><p>Nightflier was getting restless.<p>

He was certain Smokescreen had been gone too long. He was certain. What if he had been captured? Did he need backup? He needed to get out and fly—this underground business was making him claustrophobic! Optimus was dying with every passing moment! He needed to go scout for Ratchet! What was the Decepticon's next plan of attack? Were the other Autobots still alive? Where in pits of Kaon was Smokescreen?

Optimus hadn't surfaced again. Either that, or he just never spoke or opened his optics when he did. Reading the hitching cycles for consciousness depressed and worried Nightflier both as he sat helpless as the Prime wasted away before his optics. His wings fluttered in worry. He sat impatiently and broodingly, crisscross and jiggling his knees as he waited without word.

The faint whir of the Phase Shifter caught his attention. He jumped to his peds as he saw Smokescreen materialize from the wall, dragging the largest golden hammer he had ever seen before. It was even bigger than himself! He blinked widely before blurting, "Smokescreen, he's slipping."

The mech didn't even waste time to speak to him. He turned straight to Optimus, hurriedly telling the rousing Prime, "Optimus! We have the Forge. You can use it to repair yourself!"

There was a second or two in which Optimus's labored in cycles filled the silence, gritty and painful. Nightflier knelt on his opposite side as he managed weakly, "That . . . is not the reason . . . I had you retrieve the relic . . ."

Nightflier reared back in shock and Smokescreen gaped. "W-What? I don't understand!"

"The power of the Forge is not unlimited . . ." Optimus struggled to explain, wheezing for each breath. Nightflier dipped his helm respectfully, looking down at his peds. The Prime's energon leaked and pooled, dirtying in the dust. "Its energy has already begun . . . to ebb . . ."

"So it's running low," Smokescreen said, pushing aside his words as worry for him ate them alive. "Who cares! All we need is enough juice to get you back into fighting shape!"

Nightflier fluttered his wings, listening as he managed, "Whatever power remains . . . must be used . . . to rebuild the Omega Lock . . . to restore Cybertron . . ."

He looked up. That made perfect sense. But . . .

Smokescreen picked up on it too. "But . . . That would mean—"

Optimus gently cut him off, optics whirring solemnly. "The fate of all our kind . . . is more vital . . . than that of any one of us . . . including me . . ."

Nightflier felt his energon tanks twist uncomfortably. He shouldn't talk like that. He was giving up. He shook his head. "With all due respect, Commander," he said respectfully, quietly. "I thought using the Forge required a Prime."

"It does," Smokescreen told him. "The Forge is a relic of the Primes. We can't use it to restore Cybertron—not without a Prime!" The weak state of their leader made him put a light hand on comfort on his chassis. "Not without you."

Nightflier watched Optimus look towards Smokescreen, something unreadable in his optics. "There will be . . . a new Prime . . ."

He felt all his weight rock back. A chill that had nothing to do with the drafty cave drew over Nightflier. He scooted back a bit as he turned his gaze to Smokescreen, feeling like the third wheel of the conversation.

Smokescreen made a sound of impatience, standing to get the Forge. "You can worry about that after we get you patched up and we take down Megatron."

When the Prime used his waning strength to reach up and grab Smokescreen's arm, Nightflier jumped to his peds, backing away in dumbfounded awe.

"The time . . . for a new leader is upon us . . ." Optimus said, vents rattling weakly. "In my spark . . . I believe . . . that leader stands before me right now."

For the umpteenth time, Nightflier could only wonder at this mess he had suddenly been thrown into. He moved back to the opposite side of their homely cave, trying to put some distance between them as pure shock overtook Smokescreen's face. The weight of the knowledge seemed to settle slowly on the mech's processor, and Nightflier could only blink.

He was to be the next Prime. He had fraternized with the next Prime unwittingly, unknowing of the greatness held in this mech across from him. The greatness held in both the mechs across from him. He couldn't believe what he was bearing witness to.

_The rise of a new Prime._

Finally, Smokescreen seemed to snap out of his stunned trance. He reared back, staggering back several steps, and Optimus's arm fell back to his side. For a moment, the mech just stuttered without words before he looked helplessly to Nightflier. Not of any help, he just blinked back as wide and stupid and naïve as he did, giving a small, helpless shrug.

He paced for a moment, choking on the amount of responsibility that suddenly crashed down on him. Nightflier, wiped speechless, watched on from his obscure corner as Smokescreen finally stammered, "I—I can't do this."

The white mech turned back to Optimus, saying, "Sure, I mean, who wouldn't want to be a Prime, but I'm—"and he knelt at his side, "really not ready for that kind of responsibility."

Optimus's tired blue optics blinked knowingly up at him. "Smokescreen . . . The choice is neither yours nor mine to make. When it is time . . . the Matrix of Leadership will present itself only to one . . . whose spark is worthy."

* * *

><p>Prying Wheeljack away from a comatose Dreadwing had taken both Bulkhead and Cliffjumper and Nightstalker threatening to rip his optics out. And a very strong order from Ultra Magnus.<p>

When questioned about him, Ratchet reported to Ultra Magnus that he had found Dreadwing barely clinging to life. Because of his family ties to Nightstalker, he had chosen on a whim to save the mech—of which Ultra Magnus gave him a curious look about Nightstalker, but did not press the issue—and when the air commander had awoken, proceeded to plead asylum.

Of course, only Ratchet knew that their prisoner of war had asked for no help.

When the upheaval from Dreadwing's presence wore off, plans of their rebellion against the Decepticons began. They knew that if they were going to storm the Decepticon stronghold they didn't have the manpower or ammunitions to take it out. However, the United States military did. Unfortunately, Fowler couldn't let them attack with Megatron's ray guns pointed at Washington.

So the plan was to infiltrate Darkmount in order to nullify its fusion cannons.

The plan's simplicity was probably the beauty of it. Because Darkmount was heavily protected against unauthorized ground bridging, there was no way to easily find their way in, and they would have to infiltrate the old fashioned way. Jack and Miko, by using their phones, would help scattered some of the Decepticon forces into other locations. Two was conspicuous, but not completely traceable. On top of that, with Jack's voice, they would send another squadron on a wild goose chase for Autobot interlopers at one of their mines.

The Wreckers would provide the distraction outside. A small group would try to sneak their way in and through to disable the fusion cannons. Ratchet would stay with Raf at their base of operations, temporarily located in the _Harbinger_. Ultra Magnus would stand by in his ship until the Predacon showed, and they would trick it into a ground bridge straight into sub-zero temperatures.

The idea to move the Predacon far off was originally Ultra Magnus's. But it was Jack's idea to send it to an icy wasteland. He reasoned that if a Cybertronian reptile had a physiology like Earth-based lizards—as in, it was cold blooded—then it would require a constant warmth to stay alive. Ratchet had praised him for the sound thinking.

Nightstalker was sent with Bulkhead and Wheeljack. Cliffjumper was sent with Arcee and Bumblebee, the former of which muttered that he was awful at sneaking. When Nightstalker had expressed secret disappointment for having to be teamed up with Wheeljack, Cliffjumper just laughed, grinned, and told her that Ultra Magnus just knew after the fine display of before that she could handle anything he dished out.

"Autobots! Lock and load!"

Bridged out, Nightstalker, Bulkhead, and Wheeljack camped out outside of the Decepticon citadel. Nightstalker's neck craned. It was probably one of the single most-high buildings she had ever seen, twisted and eerie. She sat on the biggest cannon she had ever seen, one of Bulkhead's choice, of course, and he held both it and her easily. She highly suspected that the cannon itself weighed more than she did.

Wheeljack pulled the pin to one of his grenades, cheerfully calling out, "Fire in the hole!"

His grenade hit the side of the citadel, and a rocking explosion sounded. Bulkhead whistled.

"Nice one, Jackie!"

Through the vibrations in her wings, Nightstalker heard Bulkhead chuckle. Wheeljack grinned, grabbing the next, and then he arched a brow at Nightstalker. "Here!" She jumped and squeaked, barely managing to catch the grenade he tossed at her. He gave a gesture. "Go ahead!"

"Me?"

She couldn't help but gape her mouth open at him. He shrugged a shoulder, saying, "Sure! Just chuck it!"

Sliding out of Bulkhead's arms, Nightstalker gave a weak, "O-Okay . . ." before she zeroed in on the Decepticon citadel. Squinting her optics, she pulled the pin, winded up, and threw the grenade with all her might. It soared beautifully before coasting down and hitting the ground about halfway to the citadel. It blew harmlessly in the dirt.

Nightstalker's face burned when both the Wreckers couldn't help but laugh, and she retreated behind Bulkhead. "Aw, nice try, chicka!" Wheeljack pulled another grenade, hollering, "Fire in another hole!" His went far enough, blasting the edge of the citadel and beginning to procure a hole, and unbidden, both Wreckers moved forward. Nightstalker jumped up and followed on their tails, and her head craned up as Starscream's seeker armada soared down from the top of Darkmount.

"Steady," she heard Bulkhead's deep voice intone for her sake. She took a breath as they came down in range, and then, they fired.

Bulkhead's cannon blasted through the first seeker with ease, sending a volley of Vehicon debris falling down on them, smoke and metal shards and flaming parts. Wheeljack's semi-automatic clipped into their sides, weakening them, and he got a lucky shot on an engine, sending a soldier careening out of the sky.

Grabbing the whip, Nightstalker turned it on, reeling back the powerful voltage and slinging it into the sky as a Vehicon soared through. The whip snapped against his wing, and the voltage surged through the silver Vehicon, overloading his systems and eating a jagged edge through his wing. His engine exploded from the overload of electricity and died almost instantly. He crashed to the ground behind her somewhere, flipping and crashing into pieces.

Nightstalker did her best to pull her weight. She had troubles aiming because she was used to a non-moving target, but the whip was long enough and powerful enough that it helped her handicap. If anything, both sides had troubles landing a hit. The seekers feinted away, spooked by getting hit by the weapons, and did not take the killing shots for fear that they would die in the process. The Autobots could only catch such fast moving targets.

So the game of chicken resumed, blaster fire scorching the Autobots periodically until the seekers finally flew back overhead. Nightstalker reeled back in the whip so she wouldn't singe Bulkhead or Wheeljack, and she heard a deep growl rumble the sky.

She backed behind Bulkhead for cover, cowering in fear as the Predacon screeched angrily above. Bulkhead and Wheeljack traded glances before they open fired on the beast. Nightstalker peeked between them when Ultra Magnus shot the dragon, zooming by in his ship. The Predacon roared an audio-splitting sound, rearing around and chasing the machine that impeded on its rule of the skies. It shot several fireballs only for Ultra Magnus to dodge them. The great beast's wings pumped as it gained on him, and Nightstalker's spark froze in her throat. Just when she thought its jaws would snap on the edge of his tailpipe, his ship suddenly veered up, and the ground bridge blasted open. The Predacon flew through before it could think to stop, and the bridge shut.

Nightstalker and the Wreckers hooted with success, and then, the volley of laser fire erupted from above as Starscream's armada converged on them again. Bulkhead grunted and winced when one of the shots hit his shoulder, and Nightstalker lashed her whip out again, taking down the Vehicon that had inflicted the damage.

"Nightstalker!" She cringed and ducked behind Bulkhead for cover when the next wave of laser fire pelted through, hearing Ultra Magnus on her comm. link. "Our stealth group is compromised. Join them!" With that one order, he showed his confidence in his Wreckers by leaving them with only two to hold the front.

"Yes, sir!" she hollered back, snapping her whip up at one more silver seeker. Astonishingly, the tip if it caught the fleeing seeker, and it brought him down with an overloading surge to his systems. Wheeljack stepped around, snarling at a leak spreading down his leading arm.

"Get outta here!" he snapped. "We can hold them here!"

Bulkhead's cannon blasted another seeker into oblivion, thinning their ranks. "We'll cover you!" he said to her. "Move it!"

Nightstalker jumped, Bulkhead's soft demeanor completely gone in combat. Holstering the whip, Nightstalker transformed and zoomed across the field of battle to the hole they had made in the wall. It was small, but with several well-placed kicks, she had knocked the weakened metal in to a size that she could squeeze through. She had just gotten on her knees to crawl through when a heavy bot landed behind her.

Her optics flared wide at the sight of Shockwave's hulking form. Shockwave. Shockwave. Her processor stuck on repeat because she had only had a few brushes with Shockwave, those long ago. Curious about adding a new torture technique, asking if he could have her victim for his laboratory, and they always gained mixed answers with each other. The relationship was professional, a little nit-picky and snappy at each other, sharp with jibes and underhanded measures to get each other's ways. She liked to keep her distance from him.

Fortunately, he hadn't noticed her. His one optic was pinned to the Wreckers that were rapidly thinning the ranks of Starscream's armada. He transformed into a slow-moving Cybertronian tank, engine roaring as he approached. His gun rotated, whirred to dangerous life, and shot with a thunderous clanging gong.

The Wreckers turned at the noise, and both jerked before the shot blasted near their feet. Both lost their grips on their weapons and tumbled in a heap.

"Your mission was most illogical."

Nightstalker turned, running up and grabbing her whip. Igniting it, she jumped with a cry and lashed it across Shockwave's back. The Decepticon arched, jolting as the voltage seared through his systems, but working in science had tempered his systems for surge overloads and he had extra protection from it. When she lashed out the whip again with a snarl, Shockwave grabbed it with his hand, and he yanked her forward while he jabbed his gun into her face.

The steely barrel of his gun clocked her right beneath her chin, nearly breaking it and nearly snapping her neck in one blow. Darkness swallowed her before she could blink.

* * *

><p>"Who . . . stands . . . before me?"<p>

Smokescreen's throat worked as he fought around emotion. "W-What? I-It's me, Optimus. Smokescreen."

Nightflier approached a little closer, frowning with worry as the Prime's optics grew distant. "Who . . . beckons . . . ?"

His optics began to flicker.

Nightflier jumped forward as the Prime's chest seized. His knees hit the ground at Optimus's side. "Smokescreen, we're losing him!"

For a panicked moment, his hands slapped to one of the wounds on his stomach that was more severe than the others, trying to stop the energon flow as if it would help. But it wouldn't. He had enough energon to sustain him for several days. It was his spark, the trauma, and the sheer amount of damage done to him that he couldn't hold on.

Smokescreen jumped forward. "Optimus! No!"

His optics flickered once more, whirred relaxed, and died.

Instantly after his passing, his chest plates automatically opened, triggered by the Matrix held inside. Nightflier and Smokescreen both jumped to their peds as the sacred Matrix of Leadership was exposed. Nightflier gaped to bear witness to such an event, and he backed away, staring owlishly at Smokescreen.

Smokescreen's throat bobbed. His optics tightened. "This isn't how the story's supposed to end . . ." he whispered to no one in particular. Nightflier saw him turn, saw his optics settle on the Forge of Solus Prime.

"Smokescreen, no!" Nightflier hurried forward, flinging himself in front of the mech to stop him. He gave a gesture. "You heard him! It was his dying wish! We need it to restore Cybertron!"

"No!" the white mech snapped. "We need it to save Optimus! I can't go toe-to-toe against Megatron—I'm not ready to be Prime! We need him!"

Nightflier staggered back when Smokescreen pushed him out of the way, dragging the Forge with heavy grunts. With finality, he dropped the handle of the Forge into Optimus's limp hand.

Smokescreen's panicked vents filled the cave. "C'mon . . . C'mon!" He dropped to his knees in the dirt, wrapping Optimus's lifeless fingers around the handle. "Please, please!"

Nightflier cleared his clenching vocalizer. "Smokescreen . . . It's too late—"

"It can't be too late!" he cried. He jumped to his peds, servos shaking as he passed them over his face. "It can't be too late, it can't . . . we need him . . ."

"No," Nightflier corrected him gently. He came forward to the distraught mech. "We need YOU."

Smokescreen looked at him with pained, wide optics before staring back down at the dead Prime and the awaiting Matrix of Leadership. "But I—I'm . . ."

"You have to take it," Nightflier urged him. "It's your destiny, Smokescreen! He chose you as his successor."

His throat worked. With shaking servos, Smokescreen reached down into Optimus's chassis, fingers slowly curling around the Matrix of Leadership. It disengaged from Optimus's chassis, and Smokescreen carefully lifted the precious artifact, staring into its soft glow. He looked up to Nightflier for help, and he just gave him an encouraging nod, finding that he didn't know what to say. The white mech looked back at the Matrix, and his hands and knees wobbled.

Sucking in a tight vent of air, Smokescreen put the Matrix back down on the ground before he dropped it, and he staggered backwards into a boulder just large enough for him to sit on. He dropped his face into his palms. "I . . . I can't do this . . . I can't do it . . ."

Praying he somehow had the right words to say, Nightflier approached Smokescreen and knelt on the ground by his side. "Look, Smokescreen . . ." He swallowed, closing his optics and trying to formulate his thoughts in a cohesive form as his jagged vents filled his audios. "You've got to calm down. It's gonna be all right."

"No it's not," Smokescreen denied. He looked up at him, fear and turmoil filling his optics. "We NEEDED him, Nightflier! You don't understand, the things he's done, the things he's sacrificed, everything . . . I can't live up to that! I—I'm not ready to be Prime, that's too much to—" He choked on the amount of responsibility suddenly shoved down his throat. "I'm no Optimus Prime . . ." he finally whispered shamefully.

Nightflier shook his head. "You don't have to be him." He fluttered his wings nervously, saying, "Look, he wasn't asking you to turn into him. In fact, I'm sure that's the last thing he wanted. He asked you to become Prime—not a Prime like Sentinel, not a Prime like Optimus, just a Prime. SMOKESCREEN Prime."

When Smokescreen failed to look convinced, Nightflier shook his head and shifted his weight on the rocky ground. "Look, I think that this really is your destiny," he finally said. His vents were starting to get a little gritty because of the amount of dust covering them from the underground cave. "We've went through millennia of war. And for all of the great things Optimus has done, there's plenty mistakes to offset his greatness. So . . . maybe the Matrix needs a new Prime."

Smokescreen blinked. He finally rested his palms on his knees, and he gave a shuddering vent to control his rampaging emotions. "Needs a new Prime?" he finally repeated quietly, staring at the ground.

Nightflier nodded, meeting his optics though he didn't. "Yeah. Maybe . . . I mean, I respect Optimus as a Prime greatly, but . . . Maybe whatever it was that happened between him and Megatron was just too much to overcome. Slot, I don't know, it just seems like if the war had went on this long under his command, that maybe it takes someone else to end the war. A new way. A fresh start. A new Prime."

Smokescreen's optics squeezed shut tightly. He shook his head, and his servos clenched into fists. "And you think that Prime is me?" he finally rasped.

"Optimus did." The simple statement made Smokescreen's head jerk up and look at the lifeless husk of Optimus. Nightflier shrugged a shoulder, glancing over at him too. "Look, I . . . I can't predict your path, and I can't fully see your past . . . but . . ." He looked up at him again. "While I may not have known you that long either, I can say that I see in your optics what Optimus saw." Smokescreen's gaze finally shifted to the small seeker by his side. Nightflier's lips quirked up in a small smile. "A will to overcome fear, and a spark of gold, and an eagerness to learn. Who knows?" and that smile tugged into a grin. "Maybe there's more to you than meets the optic."

When Smokescreen's gaze drifted slowly back to the Matrix awaiting him on the ground, Nightflier popped to his peds to get it for the hesitant mech. "Look, you can do this," he said. He scooped up the Matrix. "You've just got to have a little—"

The word "faith" died on his lips. He flinched and nearly dropped the Matrix himself when his touch made it glow incredibly brightly. The light dazzled the grim underground cave, glinting off their armor and whitening their optics.

When the light of the chosen one faded, Nightflier blinked wide and stupid at Smokescreen who just looked back dumbly, jaw hanging open.


	55. Chasing Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

**"Who's gonna fight for what's right  
>Who's gonna help us survive<br>We're in the fight of our lives  
>(And we're not ready to die)<strong>

**Who's gonna fight for the weak**  
><strong>Who's gonna make 'em believe<strong>  
><strong>I've got a hero (I've got a hero)<strong>  
><strong>Livin' in me<strong>

**I'm gonna fight for what's right**  
><strong>Today I'm speaking my mind<strong>  
><strong>And if it kills me tonight<strong>  
><strong>(I will be ready to die)<strong>

**A hero's not afraid to give his life**  
><strong>A hero's gonna save me just in time"<strong>

**Skillet_Hero**

* * *

><p>After a moment of stunned shock, Nightflier tried to hand the Matrix of Leadership to Smokescreen. The white mech jumped to his peds, backing away with hands raised.<p>

"Nuh-uh! It's yours!"

Nightflier shook his head, extending it. "No, no, it's yours."

Smokescreen shook his head. "Don't even act like you didn't see that! You're the next Prime!"

"No I'm not!" he cried. He pushed it closer to Smokescreen again who backed up. "You're the next Prime! Optimus said so!"

"Well, obviously the Matrix has other ideas!" Smokescreen burst.

"But I'm not a Prime!" Nightflier cried. He held it out closer to Smokescreen, successfully making the mech bump into the wall behind him. "You're supposed to be the next Prime! Not me!"

"You SAW that light! You can't ignore it! The Matrix chose you!"

"But Optimus said YOU!"

"Oh see, NOW who's the scared one?"

Helpless, Nightflier looked back down on the sacred item he held in his hands. He gave a weak laugh, shaking his head. "No. No, that's not right. I'm not—I can't be Prime, it won't even fit in my chassis."

The second he said that, the Matrix's light flared again. He yelped when it snapped apart, transforming in his hands as it resituated itself in a miniature state, just small enough to fit in his chassis. He blinked. He looked up at Smokescreen. The mech held up his hands again.

"Don't look at me. That enough proof for you? It's you, Nightflier! It's you!"

His throat closed off. "But . . ." He stared down at the Matrix that waited patiently in his hands. His servos trembled. "I just . . . I don't even know what's going on! I don't even know the whole team, I don't know how to lead, I just . . . You think YOU'RE not qualified? Look at me!"

"I am," Smokescreen said. "Look, YOU were the one that was helping me when I was scared to be Prime. I was ready to turn it down!"

"And I'm not?"

Smokescreen waved his hands. "The point is, you knew exactly what to say, and that's definitely the mark of a Prime. Optimus ALWAYS knew what to say to bolster anyone's courage."

Nightflier's wings sagged. What could he do? Arguing about it with Smokescreen wasn't going to change anything. His servos tightened in fear on the Matrix. Could he do it? Be a . . . Prime?

He looked down on the Matrix, jaw ticking. So . . . it hadn't been by chance that the driller came that day. If the driller hadn't had attacked the Protectobot base, he wouldn't have been so far out, he wouldn't have scouted out the Decepticons, he wouldn't have joined up with the Autobots or went through their ground bridge or helped bring Optimus to the safety of this cave on the last leg of his health.

He closed his optics, breathing out a slow breath to steady himself. His wings perked up. Things like that weren't by chance. Nightflier didn't believe in luck. After managing to survive the slaughter of Kaon and landing at First Aid's peds, he didn't believe in luck—that was fate. And this was too.

He opened his optics, looking uncertainly at Smokescreen. "Do you really think I could be Prime?" he finally asked quietly.

Smokescreen nodded without hesitation. "Absolutely. After the speech you gave me—absolutely."

Nightflier looked back down at the Matrix, not knowing if he was just saying that to soothe his nerves or if he truly meant it. Not that it mattered in the long run. He had to become Prime. Fate was calling whether or not he liked it. Some things you just . . . had to buck up and do.

Taking a breath, Nightflier opened up his chassis. Though he was afraid, he closed his optics and fitted the Matrix of Leadership snugly inside, and the instant his spark made contact with it, it was like a bolt of energy ran straight through him from peds to wing tips. He arched, and lights flared, and his optics snapped open wide.

_**My new disciple. Younger, fresher, more vivacious than all the rest. You are the herald of a new age. You are an innocence born through a love that was faithful in spark. You will lead the Autobots with a youthful energy that brings light in darkness, hope in despair, and laughter in sorrow.**_

_But . . . I'm—I'm not worthy. Surely there's someone better who can take up this mantle. I'm just a follower! Why me?_

_**Because your spirit cannot be broken.**_

_** Very few in this life can bear the weight of being Prime. It is not a task asked of the faint-sparked. One must be faithful, fearless, and compassionate. You are these things. You are an advocate to the weak as you were once weak and knew their struggles.**_

_But that's it exactly. I'm just . . . a street retro rat. I always have been. Begging for anything I needed, stealing what wasn't mine to survive, and scraping the bottom of the barrel. I'M the one you choose?_

_**You are. The son of an honorable warrior and a faithful femme. You carry the curiosity in you to learn your position, and their honor and faith lives on through you. I do not make mistakes.**_

_That's . . . still hard to believe, given me of all mechs._

_**This is not all I ask of you, my disciple.**_

_It's not?_

_** No. With the Matrix, you will have a communal relationship with the past Primes. They may guide you, teach you, but they cannot act for you. You are the sum of your experiences, and your choices a reflection of that sum. In that way, you are who you choose to become. And this is why I must ask the greatest sacrifice of you.**_

_ Which is?_

_** To sacrifice yourself and give me what is left. I ask for your death.**_

_My . . . my death? But—WHY? I thought I was supposed to be Prime! Why would you make a mech Prime only to kill him? What's the glory in that? Why ask us to sacrifice so much for you?_

_**It is the hardest lesson to learn, and I may tell you no more than that. You may not have started this war, but you will be the one to end it. Take up this mantel, Nightflier, and fulfill your destiny. Rise, my disciple, and rescue your friends from Darkmount. With your death, you are now resurrected, and you shall be given a new name.**_

_** You shall be called Nightfall Prime.**_

With a gasp, Nightflier jerked and surfaced back to the land of the living. He shuddered in a breath, feeling chills running down his back. He looked up, and he saw Smokescreen staring at him.

"How long've I been out?"

Smokescreen blinked. "Um . . . I don't know, a second? You . . . haven't been out? What?"

Nightflier frowned. "But . . . I thought . . ." That conversation had definitely taken longer than a second.

Smokescreen blinked at him. "I thought you would . . . You know . . ." He gestured down at the shorter bot. "I thought Primes got new bodies? You know, upgrades?"

Nightflier glanced down at himself, seeing that absolutely nothing had changed about his body. He wrinkled his nose. "Couldn't have even made me a BIT taller . . . ?" He shook his head. "Look. We've got to get to Darkmount."

Smokescreen gaped. "Wh-What? Why? What's going on?"

"I don't know," he said truthfully. "I just . . . Something's going on. I think the Autobots are rebelling."

"Without Optimus?"

He shook his head. "I guess, I don't know. All I know is we've got to save them."

Smokescreen glanced back quickly. "But . . . What about Optimus?"

Nightflier looked back to the lifeless Prime. He swallowed and moved over, and he bent over, closing the Prime's chest plates. "He'll be safe down here," he said quietly. "If they haven't found us by now, they won't. Optimus and the Forge are safe down here." He looked up. "We'll worry about it later. Come on. We need to get moving."

Using the Phase Shifter and holding hands, Nightflier and Smokescreen made their way back up to the surface. "You go on ahead," Smokescreen said, looking out towards Darkmount looming in the distance. "I'll catch up."

Nightflier nodded, and he jumped and transformed. Pushing his thrusters, not knowing what he was going to find, Nightflier flew towards the Decepticon citadel. The time seemed to slowly tick by as it grew bigger and bigger in his sights, and then, he spotted silver and blue at the top of the citadel.

Megatron over a fallen Autobot. He soared higher and higher into the sky, the ground looming far away, and the cold of thin air and high altitudes crawled over his circuits, chilling his body. The cold numbed and settled a painful ache deep in his crippled wing, a wound long forgotten until the chill made it ache. How high WAS Darkmount? He couldn't even see the bots fighting below anymore, and clouds were his ground. Spark pulsing wildly, Nightflier threw himself into the fray without a second thought—well, lack thereof.

Transforming and pulling his shield and short sword, Nightflier landed on Megatron's shoulders. The great warlord reared up, but Nightflier jabbed his sword into his shoulder, ripping a jagged edge when he threw himself to the ground to avoid the claws reaching for him. Ducking and rolling between his legs, Nightflier turned back and lunged past him, slitting sensitive wires in his hip. Claws scratched the paint of his wings. Whirling around like a miniature storm, Nightflier delivered a roundhouse kick into Megatron's optic, thruster flaring and the heat burning. Megatron reared back with a roar and staggered away to gather his bearings.

Sheathing his sword and lifting his shield to block the bullets assaulting him, Nightflier whipped out his stun gun and quickly shot the three Vehicon troopers on the top of the building with him. A crash made him jump and point his gun towards Starscream, but the seeker was down for the count. He turned to help the other Autobot—and had to crane his head way back to see him.

Reflexively, he gave the commander a salute. "Sir."

The mech blinked down at him, impressed with his bearings to take on Megatron. Finally, he said, "I was expecting someone . . . larger in stature."

A little grin alighted Nightflier's face at the unintentional jibe at his size, something he had lived with all his life. He gave a slight shrug, "Aren't we all, sir." He glanced back when Megatron looked up at him, glaring with an optic that was glitching. He quickly turned back to the red and blue mech, fluttering his wings rapidly to try to keep a little heat and keep his aching wing warm. "Ah, so what are we doing?"

The commander's gaze settled grimly, probably a face he wore all the time. "It is paramount that we disable the fusion cannons below."

He instantly gave a salute to him, years of training ingrained in his processor. "On it, sir!" He ran and transformed, flying off just in time to hear an enraged roar. Gunfire raged around him, and Nightflier ducked and rolled, zipping away as well as he could at the volley of attacks.

Darkmount's twisted design gave him lots of little places to duck behind and fly around, a dizzyingly quick obstacle course in a cold and thin atmosphere. With every sharp vent Nightflier felt shards of icy cold air chilling his hot systems. Knowing his stun guns were too weak to really bother a mech of Megatron's size, Nightflier banked outward and zipped through a cloud of cover. He whirled around, beads of water clinging and freezing to his body as he transformed mid-air and fell back down. He landed lightly on Megatron's pursuing form before jumping off—and burning a small area of Megatron's back with his thrusters—and darting back through the cloud towards the top of the fortress. A massive ship circled below, ready to give aid should he need it.

Nightflier ducked through an opening that had been previously made, and he landed in the fusion cannon's power core room. Three Vehicons turned his way.

"Frag me flying—!"

Ducking behind his shield, Nightflier ricocheted several bullets and shot the one on his right, stunning him briefly as he launched his assault at the next two. Picking up and lashing out the whip that he hadn't used since his bout with the driller, Nightflier latched it around the neck of the first and yanked, sending the Vehicon crashing to the ground. Hooking the whip to his waist and drawing his sword, he jumped forward and engaged the first, ducking below a shot and stabbing up. The point of his blade gouged up into the helm of the Vehicon, killing it instantly before he turned around to the other. He grabbed his helm, locked the sharp edge of his sword against his neck, and he slit the mech's throat before running full throttle to the next.

He somersaulted above the shot of the last Vehicon, and he landed hard in front of him. Slamming his shield to the seeker's face, he stunned him with the electricity before jabbing his blade forward into his face. He had just pulled his sword back out and turned to the power core when he saw purple glaze his vision.

Megatron's shot collided nearly perfectly against his chassis. Nightflier felt the blast fling him back and he crashed into the wall with a cry. Gritting his dentures and falling on his hands and knees, he looked up, glaring at the warlord who landed in the room with him, a sneer on his faceplates.

"If you think you can stand against me, you are sorely mistaken, wretch," he spat at him. His jagged teeth glinted in the light, a sadistic smile curling his lips as he said, ignorant of his new title, "You are no Optimus Prime!"

Nightflier ground his jaw. Gripping his sword tightly, he staggered to his peds. The freezing temperatures combated with the burning scorch across his chassis, a shocking juxtaposition of cold against hot, despair against determination. He fanned his wings quickly, trying to ease the painful ache that throbbed in his weak wing. "Think I don't know that?" he spat back. His lip curled. "I don't need to beat you. I just need to compromise your little fortress' power core."

The warlord growled, puffs of hot air seeping from him. He drew his blade, and the screech of his sword grated ominously. "A mere trinket like yourself could never beat me. This place shall be your grave!"

Megatron surged forward, towering and massive, blade lifted high. Nightflier found his peds quickly, and he rolled away, the warlord's sword cutting through the thin air. For several wild seconds, he was put on a massive retreat as he tried to vainly stay alive beneath his assault. He was just small enough, just fast enough, that he could dodge the powerful blows and avoid the grappling claw.

He lifted his shield, blocking a blow he was too slow to avoid, and the force of Megatron's attack caused his arm to buckle in and shock up his entire arm. He tried to slip by again, but he felt his flight suddenly stopped short as Megatron got his hands on him.

Megatron's servo closed around the brace on his wing, and the breath whooshed out of him when he was stopped. A second later, Megatron whipped him around to impale him on his blade, but Nightflier felt the force at which he was swung snap the brace from its hold on his wing. With a crack and a break, Megatron's hand held nothing but the brace as Nightflier cried out in agony as his crippled wing was torn right back out of its socket, dangling by the top edge. He was inadvertently thrown across the room, and he was flung directly into the power core. The energies seized him, overloading everything. Nightflier screamed in pain, arched, electrocuted and circuits fried by the power whitening his optics and maxing out his audio receptors.

The energies cut off, overloaded and blown. Nightflier collapsed on the ground, twitching in agony and unable to flee as his wing was torn nastily from joint. Splintering pain flared with every movement as he sheathed his sword, trying to push off the ground with his empty hand.

A sharp kick to his gut sent him flying. He hit the ground, tumbling and skidding until he felt a ped and his crippled wing dangle off the edge of Darkmount. He coughed up energon. An enraged roar shook his audio receptors.

Nightflier's optics recalibrated, and he looked up to see Megatron prowling towards him, pure rage sizzling through every circuit of his body. Nightflier struggled to lift his shield, but it was weighty. He didn't have the strength. He tried to contact the other Autobots for help, but belated realized he was still on Protectobot lines, having never actually patched in to the line here on Earth. A weak moan spilled from his lips. What a stupid mistake. Any first cycle cadet knew to get on the same frequency as his allies.

He cried out when Megatron grabbed him by the throat, choking him as he shook him like a rag doll. "And what victory have you won at the price of your life?" Megatron taunted him with a deep snarl. "A momentary victory, only for Shockwave to repair my lasers?"

Nightflier reached up, pulling at the hand that suffocated him. What was the great point in taking out the lasers? He didn't know. He had done it because he had been ordered to. But he was Prime; he wasn't supposed to be ordered, was he? For a moment, all Nightflier felt was confusion, but that made way for panic when Megatron's hand grabbed his wing that dangled, held in place by one bolt.

He yanked so suddenly Nightflier didn't even have time to plead. His wing was ripped from its socket fully, and Nightflier spasmed with a cracking scream at the agony that poured into him. He jerked and seized in Megatron's grip, completely at his mercy as the warlord hoisted him high and tossed his wing over the edge.

"You're next," Megatron growled, fist tightening so much he almost broke his neck.

Energon pooled in Nightflier's mouth from a split lip plate. He spat a glob on Megatron's cheek to spite him. _"Get recycled."_

Megatron roared in fury, and Nightflier cried out when his grip shifted, digging into his back as he grabbed his other wing. There was a jerk, agony, and black.

* * *

><p>Ultra Magnus caught the first wing that fell, almost unable to process what he was looking at. Then, fear blossomed in his chassis as his ship circled around. He was too late. Megatron was already tearing the seeker limb from limb.<p>

"Autobots! Clear the area!"

He was this close to heading back inside his ship when he saw it—Megatron hurled two more pieces off the top of Darkmount, and instinctively, Ultra Magnus caught them as they fell.

One more wing and the tiny mech they belonged to.

Nightstalker gritted her dentures, backhanded by Shockwave one more time. She lassoed her whip, thinking maybe to get a shot at Shockwave to lock him down when the order from Ultra Magnus came. Immediately, Bumblebee, Arcee, and Cliffjumper made their way out, darting around Shockwave. Bulkhead and Wheeljack grappled with the Decepticon a moment more before Bumblebee ran right over him, distracting him. Nightstalker transformed and flew above, circled once, twice, and then Wheeljack duped the 'Con too, managing to weasel his way away as the blast rocked far above their heads, taking down the Decepticon fortress. Nightstalker followed them, aching horribly and ready to rendezvous with Ratchet.

Ultra Magnus dropped into his ship, and he deposited Nightflier as gently and quickly as he could without breaking stride. He immediately dropped into the pilot's seat as Darkmount rattled and broke apart around them, the air strike from the US serving its purpose well. Grabbing the controls, he instantly jerked the controls out of autopilot and swerved away from the collapsing fortress. A metal beam clipped the ship as he moved out of range of the obliterated Darkmount, and once out of range, he set the ship back on autopilot for the new base and turned to his unconscious passenger. Darkmount crashed to the ground with a thunderous clamor.

He knelt, lips pressing tightly at the sight of the dismemberment. He didn't touch the wounds that leaked all over the floor, afraid to make it worse. "Ratchet," he said over the comm. link, "give the children to someone else. Your medical assistance is required immediately."

Ultra Magnus picked up the wings, placing them to the side before turning back and sitting in the pilot's seat again. He coasted down to where the CMO awaited pick up, and the ship had barely landed before Ratchet had made his way inside. He froze at the sight of his patient awaiting him on the floor.

"By the All Spark . . ."

He dropped to his knees as Ultra Magnus took off again, servos hovering uncertainly over a new kind of wound he had never had to repair before. He couldn't do anything here. He needed a table to work at, he needed . . . He needed everything he'd lost in the destruction of the base and more. Finally, he touched his comm. link.

"Agent Fowler," he said, "how quickly can you arrange to replenish my medical supplies?"

There was a frustrated puff of air over the line. "Soon, I'm sure. The new base is stocked with what we could get on such a short notice, but . . . How soon are we talking?"

"Immediately, Agent Fowler," Ratchet stressed. He situated the small seeker better, and he turned his patient's face to the side, servos stilling at the sight of his face. "I have a mech dying on me right now."

"I'll get them to you pronto," he said sternly back. "I'll keep the line open for any other emergencies."

Satisfied as he could be with the answer, Ratchet looked up at Ultra Magnus. "Do you know who this is?" he asked him.

"I do not," Ultra Magnus replied. He glanced over his shoulder. "Do you?"

Ratchet shook his head. "No, he . . . He was an extra the team came back with from Cybertron, but . . ." He trailed off.

"But what?" Ultra Magnus pressed.

The medic shook his head again. "Nothing," he finally said. But he frowned more, feeling an uncomfortable chill run down his spine. "Just . . . chasing ghosts."

It was all in his mind. He was sure of it . . . Just chasing ghosts.

The second Ultra Magnus landed them outside of the new base, Ratchet scooped up the seeker. "Bring his wings," he told the commander, though he was absolutely sure that he had absolutely no idea what to do with them. He didn't even know if he could reattach them at this point. He hurried out of the spacious hangar, outside and across the way to the building labeled "E" as that would serve as the main area. Opening the doors and heading inside, flicking on the lights, he immediately spotted what would serve as his new medical bay.

Laying his patient on the table, Ratchet delved into what supplies were already there. When he found purchase with some cloths, he thanked the good Primus above and set to mopping up as much of the energon seeping out as he could. He heard Ultra Magnus's steps bring him inside.

"I need some water," Ratchet told him in a clipped tone. The footsteps were gone as quickly as they had come.

Venting to steady his hands and spark, Ratchet frowned at the strange wound. It wasn't like most dismemberments he had seen, gushing energon almost uncontrollably. The energon oozed, seeping like pus, and it only reminded him on how little time he had actually spent repairing seekers. Yes, there were the Aerialbots of long ago and the rare jet, but pure seeker? He comforted himself with the thought that his structure couldn't be that different, but he realized that he had never prepared himself for a seeker grounded because his wings were ripped off. It was a new kind of injury. He had never thought he would have to contend with something like this.

His servos carefully began removing back plates to clear the area for his work. As he did, his brows slowly darkened. He removed all of his back plating, but the trauma was centered mainly on where the right wing would attach.

Ratchet stared at his black protoform. Near the joints where his right wing would attach, there was . . . nothing. No protoform. Just a grisly old wound healed almost improperly—clearly, someone had cut much of the protoform out, a surgical procedure that had Ratchet wincing on the inside. But he could see that on the protoform that remained, there were telltale signs of deep scarring from 3rd degree burns. The sight of his back strut would make people cringe, and knowing that the metal in his back didn't have protoform to protect it made the cogs in Ratchet's mind churn. The grating had to be a discomfort. He probably had to regularly lubricate the metal so he wouldn't rust. If he got cold, it had to give him a severe ache.

Even more alarming was the difference between where the left wing and the right wing would attach. The left wing was a raw, fresh wound. The right was different, tampered with and a little abnormal. The screws were rattled, nearly pulled free when his right wing had been pulled off again. It was clear to even Ratchet that extensive surgery had been improvised upon his wing. He had been a cripple before, and judging by the screws and bolts that had held his wing to him previously—not his biomechanical, original bolts—someone had forced his wing back on.

His processor nearly grinded to a halt. A seeker's wings were highly sensitive, evidence he had experienced firsthand when repairing Nightstalker. That his biomechanisms had actually been able to accept the non-biomechanical parts into his body was processor boggling. To do that, he wouldn't have been able to shut off his pain receptors. If he did, the medic would have had to do a full reset to his sensory net to reboot him, and that would cause his body to reject the non-biomechanical parts. But if he left his receptors off, he wouldn't be able to feel the wing at all when it had been forcibly attached.

The pain of doing that to any body part, much less something as sensitive as seeker wings, left Ratchet's processor reeling. This mech had to have a will of steel, and whoever had repaired him was gutsy and innovative.

He jerked back to the matter at hand when he heard Ultra Magnus's steps coming back. He turned and snatched the bucket of water from him without a word, lips pressing mulishly as he poured some water over the seeker's back. It washed over him and cleared the energon, and he found the culprits that were bleeding so much of his energon. Four deep holes, presumably where claws had dug into him—when Megatron had ripped off his other wing. Ratchet swore under his breath.

"Agent Fowler, I need something to stitch him up! Ah . . ." His processor scrambled a minute as he struggled to think of something that humans had that could possibly work for Cybertronian sized stitches. He snapped his fingers. "Electrical wiring. That will work. But for Primus's sake, remove the electrical wiring from the rubber! I don't need to accidentally shock him!"

Taking the cloth, he pressed it to the bleeding wounds just as the sound of a small jet engine filled the air and a transformation. "Ratchet? What's wrong?"

"Perfect timing, Nightstalker," he said without looking at her. "Come here—"

She screamed. A horrible scream that raked across his audios, panicked and scared. "I know!" he snapped. He jerked his head. "Get over here! I need your hands!"

"Oh Primus, Ratchet—his WINGS!"

"I know!" he burst for what felt like the thousandth time. "Get over here NOW!"

She ran to his side, wings fluttering and face awash in horror at the thought of what losing her wings would mean. Ratchet pointed his finger. "See these bolts? Here, here, and here," and he pointed to them all. "I need you to pull those out."

Her lips shook. "I—I—What?"

"Just do it, Nightstalker," he stressed, trying his best not to snap at her because he knew it would only make her even more nervous. "They're not his biomechanical bolts. If I leave them in, it'll only beget infection, and my hands are too big to reach in there." He didn't know where his proper tools were. He was sure most of them were here, but he didn't have the time to try to look.

Nightstalker vented audibly to try and control her panic as she reached into his back, pulling at the first bolt that had already become wet with oozing energon. Ratchet wiped it again as she pulled.

He vented in irritation. "Now's not the time to be gentle, Nightstalker, yank if you have to."

"But won't that hurt him—"

"He's completely unconscious," Ratchet interrupted brusquely, "and if yanking it out does damage the sockets some, so be it, but if he gets an infection on top of this dismemberment, I'm certain I'll lose him. Now PULL."

* * *

><p><em>Put me to sleep, evil angel . . .<em>

_Open your wings, evil angel . . ._

_Fly over me, evil angel . . ._

_ Take me from this misery . . . I surrender . . ._

The ground bridge blasted open. He almost thought the Autobots had forgotten him. Maybe the Decepticons had finally corrected their oversight about the _Harbinger._ As it turned out, he just ended up getting looked in the face by Bumblebee. He screwed his optics shut defiantly, pleading to Primus, to Unicron, to God, to angels, anything that would listen to smite his life on the spot.

But he knew that was useless. Ratchet's work was done well. He would survive. As much as he hated it, he was going to make it. He could feel his strength returning.

He heard Bumblebee twitter nervously and strong hands grab his shoulders, much too big to be Bumblebee's. "All right, up you go. Ratchet wants you moved to his laboratory."

Dreadwing opened his optics when he was shoved none-too-gently to a sitting position. He hissed at the pain from the sudden movement, and Bumblebee leapt to his side to support him. He jerked at the scout's touch, half torn between attacking the mech or resisting his touch. Instead, realizing that no matter what he did the Autobots would have their way, he stood shakily to his peds for the first time since Megatron had shot him with his own weapon.

Ultra Magnus all but hauled him through the ground bridge. Dreadwing tried to keep his peds beneath him as Bumblebee's vocals whirred uncertainly behind him. He gritted his dentures, keeping his helm held low they couldn't see his face. When Ultra Magnus pushed him towards the other empty table, Dreadwing's head suddenly lifted, attention drawn and caught by Nightstalker and Ratchet, the latter supervising the former stitching up a tiny seeker.

His spark jolted. His in cycles thinned in shock, and his optics widened. He knew him with one glance—he would never forget. He took a step towards him. "Nightflier . . ."

Ultra Magnus yanked him back when he tried to get close, and Dreadwing growled sharply, turning on the Autobot that dared hold him back. "Let go of me!" he snarled at the commander. His free hand curled for the attack. "That's my son!"

All activity in the base stopped. Nightstalker blinked down at her hands covered in his energon where she was stitching him up. "I do not care who he is," Ultra Magnus said evenly, brows darkening at Dreadwing's aggression. "No one will be disturbing their work. You will hold your place."

"I will not!" Dreadwing bellowed, spark stretching thin and agony flaring up. He yanked against the commander's grip. "You would deny me my own son—my—my son . . ." His vocals choked on emotion as he turned to look at Nightflier completely unconscious. At the sight of his dismemberment, Dreadwing felt his knees weaken, and he collapsed into a sitting position on the berth next to him. He stared in wonder, spark sputtering with painful hope and fingers twitching with the urge to stroke his cheek. Though he relented and sat, Ultra Magnus did not move away.

Despite being in the middle of a procedure, Nightstalker turned to Dreadwing, servos frozen and wetted with his energon. "What?" she finally managed to say.

His optics caught with her, and wordlessly the truth was told to her. She dropped the needle, turning back around and blinking uncomprehendingly at Nightflier unconscious on Ratchet's operating table. "W-What?"

"That's not all he is," Smokescreen said. All the bots turned towards him. He squirmed a little under the intensity of everyone's gaze, and he felt his spark and stomach hit his peds.

"He's our new Prime."


	56. Emotional Debris

**Author's Note:**

**Ah, thank you for all the lovely reviews! Love is reviews, and reviews are inspiration, and thank you! Most of this chapter was inspired by Daft Punk's _Father and Son _so you may get a more emotional read if you read this chapter while listening to it.  
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* * *

><p>A finger stroked his cheek. Gently. Patiently. Lovingly. It was a slow, languid stroke that spoke of millennia of impossible wait. Soft. Tainted with agonized amour.<p>

With the sweet feeling of those knuckles tracing his cheek came pain. So much pain. He shifted, as if to get away from the pain, and all he received for his movement was searing lances of agony. Everywhere. It all hurt. He gave a weak moan, and the comforting hand jerked away from him.

His servos shook as he lifted his palms to press them flat against the table he was on. His movements caused fire to blaze two hideous paths down his back, and he moaned louder, gritting his dentures. He tried to move his wings from their position that was hurting so much, but nothing happened to ease it. If anything, it only siphoned the pain into pinpoint accuracy, splitting him apart from the inside out. A new hand rested on top of his before he could try to get up.

"Easy. You don't need to be moving yet."

Finally, it occurred to him that he needed to online his optics. Nightflier's vision slowly recalibrated, and he found himself staring into the face of a red and white mech with a red chevron on his helm. He swallowed and cracked his jaw open, rasping, "You must be Ratchet."

He had a healer's optics. He could tell by that alone, but also because he had clearly woken up on a medical berth. Never mind the description he had been given by Smokescreen.

He nodded. "Yes. And you must be . . . Nightfall Prime."

Nightflier's brows puckered a moment. "No, I'm Nightfli—Oh . . . Y-Yes, that's me." Slowly, the cogs of his mind were catching up with his outside environment. With that knowledge, he realized he had been stripped of all his armor above his waist. He felt naked, ashamed, and he tried to move his wings again to cover up the old wound he knew would be showing. His wings didn't respond. Only pain.

Ratchet blinked at him, something dark around his optics. "How are you feeling?"

What would be the right word to suit how broken he felt? "Awful," was the first word to come out of his mouth before he thought more on it. He shuddered in a shaky cycle. "I . . . Help me sit up. Please."

"You—"

"Please."

Though Ratchet's lips pressed, he acquiesced to his request. Gentle hands took him, and Nightflier bit back a sound of pain, seizing and gasping slightly when he was lifted to an upright position. His jaw locked tightly, and he braced a hand against the berth, his other hand gripping Ratchet's arm. "Smokescreen?"

He looked up, seeing Smokescreen jump around the tallest mech, and he hurried to his side. Six pairs of crystal blue optics stared at him, and Nightflier tried not to squirm at the unwanted attention. Smokescreen hurried to his side, crouching in front of him. "Yeah?"

Nightflier swallowed. "I . . . need you to go get Optimus. Take someone with you to . . . help you carry him. A-And the Forge."

Smokescreen nodded. "Yes, sir."

He shifted uncomfortably at the "sir" but watched as Smokescreen went up and traded a few words with the tallest mech, the same mech Nightflier had found beneath the brunt of Megatron's power at the top of Darkmount. After a moment, he looked at Nightflier, pressed his lips together, and said something to Smokescreen. Smokescreen and the green Autobot left.

Nightflier felt his hand tighten on Ratchet's arm. He dropped his helm. "R-Ratchet . . ." He took a tight breath, shivering. "M-My wings . . . Are they . . ." He couldn't finish the sentence. He looked up, and he witnessed the mech's throat work.

It was all the answer he needed. Something slowly began to break inside, and he felt hot tears sting his optics. He bowed his head, pressing his face into Ratchet's forearm as he struggled to hold back his weeping. Faintly, over his bond and millions of light years away, he felt First Aid trying to soothe his distress. It did nothing to touch it.

_My wings. BOTH of them. They're gone . . . What am I supposed to do?_

For a moment, he allowed himself to grieve and wept quietly, unable to process how he was supposed to manage without them. Without one had been hard enough until First Aid had managed to jerry rig an unorthodox fix. But both? And without First Aid? He was grounded. Possibly for good. They didn't have the resources the Protectobots had found, bought, stolen on Cybertron, and there was no way to get that kind of equipment here on Earth.

He rocked, shuddering in agony of the body and mind. He didn't know how he would manage. Sure, it had taken First Aid a long, long time to fix him, but during that time so long without flight . . . It was at times like that that he would have given anything NOT to be a seeker. He tried to flutter his wings only to find he couldn't. Vorns upon vorns without a flight . . . He couldn't imagine a worse torture. Something that had stretched his mental stability to its limit.

Taking a ragged vent, Nightflier tried to control his trembling. Wiping his optics, he lifted his helm, swallowing and looking back up to the others just watching. Ratchet backed away a little once he released him, unnerved by him crying on him. "Arcee . . . Where's my sister?"

Instead of answering, Arcee looked back to a red mech with horns on his head. He watched the mech's lips pull a little as he turned behind him—and then he whirled.

"Nights?"

Arcee's jaw dropped. "Cliffjumper!"

Nightflier looked harder at the red mech in question as he spun in a circle before sputtering at Arcee. "W-What? She was right here!"

Arcee threw her hands up. "Okay. So FIND HER."

He jumped before turning and bolting from the room. "Nights! Nights, where'd you go? Nights!"

Nightflier's lip pulled a little that he caved so quickly to Arcee bossing him. Instead, he let out a vent, struggling not to wince in pain as he looked around the open shelter they were in and—

He saw who sat next to him. He blinked, and he felt his spark hit the pits of his stomach. Red optics blinked from the berth next to him, longing and wary. Nightflier felt his throat bob.

"Dad?"

Relief seemed to pour into Dreadwing's optics, as if he hadn't expected him to remember him. But he did. That same hulking form. That same blue. That same helm. Those same optics. Dreadwing scooted closer, some semblance of a smile touching the edges of his mouth as he reached his hand out to him. "Nightflier."

He moved back. Dreadwing froze. Nightflier blinked at him, optics wide but brow furrowed as he stared at the mech that had been absent from his life for so long. "Where were you?"

The happiness in his optics faded. His hand dropped. His bottom lip twitched inward before he cleared his vocalizer and managed, "Nightflier, I—"

"Where were you!" Nightflier snapped. His throat worked again, and he scooted farther away until he was on the opposite edge of his own berth. Tears stung his optics before he could stop them.

Dreadwing wetted his lips, spark thundering erratically in his chassis. "Nightflier, please, don't. I was trying—"

"Where were you!" he shouted. He felt his body reel up defensively, and he choked on a sob before glaring as much as he could with his blue optics. "Where you were! When I was growing up, when Mom was sick and died, when we were on the streets, when the Decepticons invaded, ALL MY LIFE—where were you? Where were you!"

A stricken look crossed the great seeker's features. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He cleared his vocalizer again, rasping quietly, "Nightflier . . . I'm sorry . . . I—"

"Well I'm sorry doesn't cut it!" Nightflier cut in angrily. He sniffed back the tears, scrubbing them away with the back of his hand. "I'm sorry doesn't help a slagging thing! S-So what was it? Too busy killing people to stop and take care of your family!"

Dreadwing winced as if it was a physical blow. His wings drooped, knowing it was worse than that. "I . . . I tried to find you when Megatron ordered the routing of femmes and sparklings," he managed tightly. He lifted pleading optics to his son. "I tried to find you, I swear I did, I just—"

"Just what?" Nightflier interrupted bitterly. His lips trembled. "That was the only time we were important enough to you to look for us?"

"No!" Dreadwing burst, feeling smaller every second that passed as his son ground him down and the looks from the Autobots became even more condescending by the moment. "Nightflier, I—"

"So what was it then!" he exploded. Nightflier felt his hands fist, and his optics cut into his squirming father. "What was it? Why didn't you come back?"

Silence blanketed the room. Dreadwing felt his vents thin as two optics he had missed most in all the world stared out passionately, judgmentally, hating him. He opened his mouth, but nothing but a crack came out. Nightflier made an impatient and angry face as he waited on his answer. Finally, Dreadwing dropped his helm, rasping, "Nightflier . . . I'm sorry, I . . . It was me. All me. After that fight with your mother, I . . . I couldn't let go of my pride. And when I was ready to come back . . . it was too late . . ."

Nightflier stared. His words cut. They cut like a knife, and they went deep, paralyzing his soul. It took him a moment, but he slowly realized tears were slipping down his cheeks. The same cheeks Dreadwing had been stroking before he woke up. The betrayal ate through him, disintegrating his spark like a virulent rust.

Dreadwing looked up into his silence. He reached out to him again, "Nightflier, I—"

"No." The hollow ring of his voice hurt. Dreadwing's hand slowly fell away again as betrayal lanced across Nightflier's spark. He shook, shaking his head at him. "D-Don't speak to me," he rasped.

Dreadwing winced when he turned away from him, bearing his ugly wounds toward him. He felt his spark slowly splitting in two, breaking apart under the strain of spark break.

So close. He was right there, after all those years having believed he was dead. He wanted to throw himself in his arms; he wanted to bundle him up into his chassis. Dreadwing's throat worked as he stared in horror at his son choosing to shut him out. He leaned forward, reaching out to him again. "Nightflier, I'm sorry, I—"

He winced away at his words. Dreadwing recoiled again, something tearing inside of him, a part of his soul fading. His hand dropped. He turned away, unable to bear the sight of the grisly wounds marring his son. He scooted across his medical berth to face the wall away from the bots, taking the same exact position his son had; sitting, hands gripping the edge, helm low to hide his face, and wings drooped low.

"Does anyone know where my sister is?"

It was as if his words broke the tense atmosphere of the room. Immediately, every bot in the room looked around for him, no one finding the culprit of hide and seek. Finally, the tallest mech nodded towards him. "We will find your sister," he told him.

Nightflier nodded weakly. "Thank you."

The Autobots immediately filed out, even before proper introductions, all leaving the hangar to search for Nightstalker. They immediately began calling her name, and Nightflier was left with Ratchet until a small pair of peds came up to him.

"Nightflier? Are you okay?"

He looked up to find Arcee standing in worry above him. Her eyes cut over his head to Ratchet, but when the medical officer didn't throw her out of his area, she looked back down to Nightflier. Something in her optics . . . the concern there . . . It made his spark bleed. That she wasn't afraid to show real, empathetic concern despite him being Prime made something break inside, and he shook his head, telling her the truth in a raspy whisper.

"No. No, I'm not."

There was a pause, and then she sat next to him. Before she had a chance to say anything more, he turned to her shaking in pain, and he grabbed one of her hands for support. He pressed his forehead to her shoulder without thinking, shuddering as he held back another wave of overwhelmed tears. She shifted, uncomfortable with him so close.

"I'm separated from my brothers-in-arms," his deep voice whispered quietly to her, listing it all. "My spark brother is so far away I can barely feel him. I come face-to-face with the mech that tried to kill me so long ago. I hear my sister is still alive. My father is suddenly here. My wings—my wings are gone." He trembled, shaking his head. "And on top of all of that, I'm supposed to be Prime. So no, I'm not okay. It's just . . . too much to take in at once . . ."

After a moment of struggling to contain himself, he felt the hand in his tighten supportively. His lips tipped up weakly as he realized he was crying on her again, and he pulled back tiredly, still keeping holding her hand. "Thanks," he grumbled quietly, wiping his optics again.

Her throat moved before she abruptly stood to her peds. "I, uh, I really should go help look for Nightstalker."

He let her go, nodding with another quiet, "Thanks." She hesitantly moved away before turning and heading out of the room.

There was a pause of quiet as Nightflier was left with Ratchet and Dreadwing alone in the room. Finally, quietly, he heard, "I don't understand."

Nightflier's helm tipped in tired indifference to the medic. "Understand what?"

Ratchet turned towards him, a cinch in his brow. "You haven't turned off your pain receptors."

Ah, it was an expected inquiry. Though every movement was laced in agony, Nightflier tried to straighten his back a little. "If I'm gonna have any hope of getting them reattached, they've got to stay on."

"I know that," Ratchet stated. He pensively flicked his finger over a datapad, searching it for answers he didn't have. "But I'm out of my domain here. I do not have near enough experience in repairing seekers as a Decepticon medic would have, and our supplies are limited. I have no surgical tools, nor the proper equipment, and what I do have is even more rudimentary than before." Finally, he set aside the datapad and crossed his arms. He arched a brow at his stubborn patient, intelligence not to be belied. "As far as things go, it doesn't look like you have any chance to get your wings reattached unless the medic who repaired you the first time was here to help me and brought with him the equipment needed."

It was an invitation. Nightflier hung his helm, fighting a losing war inside at the thought. He was offering him to turn off his pain receptors. If he did, he wouldn't be living in this agony. But if he did, he would never have the chance of reattaching his wings. He would be grounded. For life. If he turned them off, there was no going back.

On the other hand, if he kept them on, he would live his every waking moment in agony. Pain would shadow him wherever he went, and every movement would hurt; his strength would be taxed. And there was no hope for a miracle that they would be able to attach his wings anyways. Either choice was a crippling handicap, and he was forced between a rock and a hard place.

Finally, an unsteady vent shook out of him. "No." He struggled to lift his helm, and he stared past the medic and to the far wall. "I . . . I'll keep them on."

For what, he couldn't say. He just . . . had to trust somehow all hope wasn't gone, as foolhardy as it seemed. In response to his choice, he heard Ratchet grunt slightly. "Very well. I'll dilute your energon with pain killer."

Nightflier nodded, weighted down by his choice. "Thank you."

Ratchet took a step to the side. Sensing he was still sitting motionlessly, Ratchet said, "You need your rest."

"I want to meet my sister," was all he could say back. His tone of voice sounded a bit petulant because he was so exhausted, but his spark was filled with longing. He fought to keep his optics open.

He heard Ratchet give a perturbed mumble. "I'm sure you know as well as I do that if Nightstalker doesn't want to be found, she won't be."

That made him give a sigh of defeat. Nightflier turned on his hip before easing himself down to lie on his stomach, wincing and shuddering in uneven breaths at the movement. "She couldn't hide from me," he whispered softly. He knew he could find her. He had always been better at hide and seek than she had.

* * *

><p>When her brother finally reluctantly fell into a recharge, Nightstalker finally shifted from her uncomfortable position. Dreadwing brooded on the edge of his medical berth, and Ratchet poured over a datapad, presumably the one containing information on Nightflier's condition.<p>

Finally, Nightstalker stretched her legs out and slipped from one of the beams holding up the ceiling. She landed with a light thump, and Ratchet started, whirling with his datapad in hand.

"Nightstalker? Wh—Where have you been?" But he answered his own question, because he looked up to the ceiling and her apparent hiding spot. He frowned at her. "Why didn't you come down?"

She approached slowly, cautiously. Her orange optics darted over the inert form of her brother, and she swallowed around the shame clotting up her throat. He was Prime. Her big brother was . . . Prime. Chosen. Sacred. Her lips quivered as she looked up to Ratchet.

"Why do you think I hid?" she whispered. She trembled and crossed her arms against the cold that stole over her, sagging wings fluttering with anxiety. "I'm—Ratchet, I'm . . . I'm DISGUSTING compared to him . . ."

Ratchet clicked in irritation before he scooped her up into his arms in the quaint quiet of the new base, emptied of bots as they searched for her. "Nightstalker, don't say things like that."

"But they're true," she husked back, voice thickening with tears. She curled up her legs, burying herself into his chassis. "You know it as well as I do. What Megatron's done to me . . ." Her claws gripped his chest, almost cutting through the paint. Her voice rasped in pain. "What I've done with my own hands . . ."

A soft vent puffed over her head, and Ratchet took her to the side, sitting down. She curled up in his lap, helm tucked beneath his chin. His strong arms swallowed her up, a haven of protection and solace. "Nightstalker, please," he said quietly. "Do not blame yourself for your upbringing. You had no one to teach you the difference between right and wrong, and the Decepticons' influence on you only made things worse."

"That doesn't excuse my actions," she murmured back. She pressed her helm into the front of his chassis, feeling the vibrating thump of his spark. It was a soothing sound, a tickling feel, and it washed over her embroiled conscience like a balm. "I'm . . . trying to make it better, I'm just . . . I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

She shivered when his servo passed over her wings, sending sweet prickles down her struts. The tears began to slip out. She hadn't even realized they were bubbling up.

"I'm afraid . . . he'll hate me . . . He'll hate who I am, what I've done . . ."

Solid footfalls alerted them to company. Ratchet looked up to find Ultra Magnus halting in the doorway of the room, optics pinning to Nightstalker. Ratchet gave a small gesture for a minute. The commander pursed his lips, nodded respectfully, and left.

A troubled grumble rumbled from him. His arms tightened, and his hands soothed down her back, kneading away the negative emotions. His lips pressed to the side of her helm. "Don't speak like that," he reprimanded her softly. "He's going to love you. He wanted so much to see you again."

She felt herself growing even smaller. Every time she thought she could see the surface and some light, the guilt wore her down again. To top of her mountain of woe, another dash of remorse covered the top. He wanted to see her, and she had hid from him. What kind of sister was she? After millennia of missing him, and she couldn't even bring herself to meet him.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"Trust me," Ratchet murmured. "Family doesn't give up on one another so easily. They're the one thing you can always count on to be there, to pull you up when you're weak. It doesn't matter about the past, because they can forgive you of anything. Family doesn't give up on each other, even if the other turns their back on them."

For a quiet minute, Nightstalker absorbed his words, cuddled close and loved. Then, she lifted her helm, blinking back suspicious wetness. Wordlessly, she looked over to the alienated Dreadwing.

Ratchet made a sound unable to be placed, but Nightstalker gently disentangled herself from his arms. She passed her brother, and she halted by his helm. Uncertainly, her hand reached out, shaking in indecision, and the desire to touch his cheek, to stroke there comfortingly the way he had done for her on lonely nights in Kaon almost overpowered her. With a sharp intake, she jerked her hand away, unable to touch him, as if he were sacred and her mere touch would corrupt what he was chosen to be. Instead, she forced herself to bypass him, and she sat gingerly next to Dreadwing.

His optics flickered, his only recognition of her. "Leave me," he rasped quietly.

She shook her head. "No." Nightstalker shrugged a shoulder in Ratchet's general direction. "I know you heard us. I know you heard what he said. And he's right."

"Perhaps," Dreadwing acquiesced softly. "But I am not worthy. I do not deserve it for the crimes I have committed, and I have paid the price by losing Nightflier. I have nothing left. My soul is shattering, and no one cares. I am beginning to think I should let myself fade away."

"No," Nightstalker said. She shook her head, and she reached to take his hand. "Don't talk like that. Nightflier needs you."

His hand jerked away. "He does not want me."

"That's what he thinks," Nightstalker muttered. "Look. Nightflier will come around. I promise. He can't hold a grudge, especially to family. And if you think no one cares about you, you're going to have a scrapping epiphany when you realize how stubborn I'm going to be about letting you throw your life away."

When she said that, he winced slightly. She watched pain flicker across his face, and his optics shuttered. He looked away.

"You sound so much like your mother when you say things like that."

The sweet words were bitter from his mouth. Laced with agony and longing for the days long past. To that, Nightstalker bit her lip and dropped her head, not knowing what to say. Dreadwing shifted finally, and he looked at her, red optics smoldering.

"You are the product of my sins," he admitted on a lost breath. "A constant reminder of my failings, a living ghost of your mother, the salt on a raw wound. I agonize every time I see you, and my grief is self-inflicted. And it is for this that I hate you.

"But I also know I have no right to hate you." He glanced away, looking at the ground. "You have done nothing to deserve my cruel treatment, and yet I keep you beneath my peds. You have done nothing but help me, support me, and all I can do is shun you . . . both over the thought that I do not deserve it, and also because it only reminds me of the mate I lost."

Nightstalker shifted at his words, and she looked warily up at him. The hulking remains of the Decepticon air commander turned his helm down to her, optics glowing brightly with smothered passions. He briefly glanced to Nightflier before he focused back down on Nightstalker.

"Did you ever wonder why I was named Nightstalker?"

He blinked once at her, a short-lived surprise flickering across his features. "No . . . I did not."

Nightstalker fluttered her wings nervously. "Well . . . I don't think she meant to have me. You know, just drunk and all . . . but I do think she tried to honor you with my name." He didn't say anything, but she felt him physically still next to her. Nightstalker nodded. "Yeah. She kept the night part of my name. She still named me after the night, after the time where you guys found solace . . . when you fell in love." His vents hitched imperceptibly. "A-and, stalker? Who in the world was there to stalk her nights but a lost love?"

His intakes lurched audibly. "Don't say things like that!" he rasped. His hands tightened on the edge of the berth, and he cringed visibly, almost unable to take the impact of what she was suggesting. "Don't say things like that, please . . ."

Nightstalker shrugged slightly, and she bent her legs so she could hug her knees close to her chassis. "It just . . . made sense to me," she murmured. "That's all."

His chest heaved a little. He shook his head, and he looked at her. Nightstalker shifted positions nervously, feeling like his optics were seeing right through to her.

"Nightstalker . . . I . . ."

When he looked back down and gasped back tears, Nightstalker jumped to her peds, collecting the broken remains of her step-father. "Shh, it's gonna be all right. Just give Fli-Ni a little time to come around, I promise he will . . . shh . . ."

He didn't cry. But his shoulders shook, and he trembled. A reluctant hand wrapped around her, seeking her comfort despite all that told him otherwise. An uneven breath shivered from him.

"I do not deserve you . . ."

A sad smile touched Nightstalker's lips. She let him bury his helm in her chassis, and she rested her chin on his helm. "That's all right," she murmured. "I know that better than anyone . . . And I find that, even though we don't deserve the people we are blessed with, it's not our choice. It's theirs." She gave a weak laugh. "And they're gonna make your life miserable with happiness."

* * *

><p>"Nights?"<p>

Cliffjumper's question was barely a breath in the night. Due to space issues, their berth rooms were all conjoined into one spacious hangar. The others were in a steady recharge, soft vents filling the air. She could hear a small dust bunny kicking around in Bumblebee's airways, but it would dislodge after a few more cycles.

She blinked several times, and then she shifted, turning around in his arms so she could face him. "Yeah?"

He arched a brow at her. "You were crying," he whispered softly. His tired optics blinked at her. "Talk to me."

Nightstalker shook her head. The feeling weighed her down, made a part of her feel sick. "Just . . . thinking about Optimus," she admitted quietly.

Something cracked in the back of Cliffjumper's optics. He bunched her up tight to his chassis, whispering tightly, "Yeah. Me too . . ."

They alternately cried quietly on each other. Nightstalker more so than Cliffjumper. She wasn't quite sure why. Her entire relationship with the Prime had been estranged. Confused. Full of sinful passion and lust. Strife. Disobedience. But she grieved. She couldn't fathom why, but it could have been because of his compassion. His willingness to grant her second chances. She doubted anyone else in the world would have. Because for all her imperfections, he had still managed to care about her just as much as any of the others, and that hit her the hardest.

Even after Cliffjumper fell into a recharge, she found she couldn't. She was restless, agitated, and something just felt off. She gently tried to detangle herself from Cliffjumper's arms without waking him, but he stirred anyways. She put a finger to her lips, motioning that she'd be back soon, and his optics darkened a little in worry. After pressing a kiss to her hand, he let her go, trusting her with whatever she was doing before he lapsed back into recharge.

Ratchet wasn't in his berth. It was him keeping her up. As she crept silently from the berth rooms and out into the night air, she tiptoed her way back to the main hangar where only Nightflier and Dreadwing were still forced to recharge at, the lack of berths being one thing but their wounds being another. Dreadwing was almost fully healed at this point, but she doubted he would want to leave Nightflier's side anyways.

She peeked inside. The room was dim, quiet, and she saw Dreadwing knelt at Nightflier's side. His helm was bowed over him, and his hands hovered over his back stripped of his wings, desperately wanting to touch him and deterred by his disavowing and wounds. She shrank. Soft weeping met her audios.

Troubled, she left. The chill of the night air blew over her, and she sneaked around the base, trying not to make any sounds so she wouldn't wake anyone. Not finding anything, she wandered aimlessly back, weaving uncertainly between the hangars. Finally, she tiptoed her way between the berth barracks and the main hangar.

Behind the main hangar, she found him. He sat on the ground with his back resting against the wall, legs crooked slightly, and elbows resting on his knees. His palms pressed against his optics.

Nightstalker swallowed, feeling something detach as she saw him suffering alone. She took a wary step, just heavy enough to alert him of her presence. "Ratchet?"

He still jumped. He quickly stood to his peds, all tears gone with a subtle wipe of his optics. "Nightstalker? Are you all right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine," and she came up to him, orange optics flickering uncertainly in the night. "Are you?"

The depth of her statement caused him slight pause, but he covered it up swiftly with a nod. "Yes, of course. I'm fine."

Concern overshadowed her optics. Reaching out to him, she took his hand, and she felt his fingers twitch at the touch. His hand slowly covered hers. "Ratchet . . ." she murmured, "you don't have to hide anything. It's just us."

A crack ran down the fine line of his control. He cupped her cheek gently and shook his head. "I'm fine, Nightstalker," he persisted softly. "Go back to sleep."

She covered that hand with her other servo. She blinked up knowingly at him, whispering, "He was your best friend."

A sharp intake briefly cut the silence, and Ratchet knelt down to her eyelevel. He looked her in her optics. "Nightstalker, I will be fine," he stressed gently. "Go ahead and get some rest."

"No!" She took her hands angrily from him, frustrated he was trying to lock her out. "So you can what?" she said, gesturing indefinitely to the ground. "Cry all by yourself again?"

Something in her tone of voice brought his helm back down. His blue optics flicked up to her, and the raw pain behind them made her still. "Nights . . ." He cleared his voice, but it still husked. He knelt down, and she felt his hands take her elbows, and he chafed up and down her arms before he squeezed her shoulders. His throat worked, and a film of lubricant made his optics sheen in the moonlight.

"Nightstalker . . ."

She hit his chassis suddenly as he enveloped her in a massive hug, a hand holding her helm to his shoulder. He pressed his face into her, vents staggering in grief. "H-He was my best friend . . ."

Her throat tightened. Wrapping her arms around him, Nightstalker pressed a tender kiss to the side of his helm, and she held him close, spark hurting. She didn't want to see him like this. Didn't want to . . . have to be the one to soothe his tears. He was her father; her rock; her comfort. To see him so broken down . . . It scared her. But it also reminded her of the fact that he had no one else. No one else he could turn to for comfort. Optimus had been the mech he could lean on if he needed consoled. Now?

There was only her.

She shushed him quietly, petting the back of his helm. She didn't say anything. She . . . didn't HAVE anything to say. While she had lost family before, Nightflier had been the only person she'd cared about. But friends? It was a different, pain, one she didn't quite know until they'd lost Optimus. And even that was confusing for her. But she could be here for him. It was all he needed, to know he wasn't alone. She didn't have to say anything because he took comfort in her presence alone.

His vents shuddered out irregularly. Soft, choking sobs escaped his vocalizer here and there. It was a quiet cry, as if he were ashamed he had to cry for him at all. Broken. Hidden. Unwilling to let the others see his pain. The sound of him struggling to be silent almost hurt more than any sound he could have made.

She could feel his tears trickle down into her armor.


	57. Rejection

**Author's Note:**

**Hello! :) Much thanks to my reviewers, and here's some explanation on how Nightflier survived Kaon!**

* * *

><p>The next day dawned sunny, as per their desert home. But the atmosphere was dark. The anguish of losing Optimus ate through their souls. They couldn't bear to go to the isolated hangar and see the broken remains of their leader. Each bot dealt with their grief differently and helped their human partners deal with their grief, but no one spoke about it to each other. It was as if his death had become a taboo subject. No one wanted to say anything. No one wanted to tear up fresh wounds.<p>

Nightflier could feel it in the air. He could FEEL it. It was that palpable, and that potent that he could taste it.

It tasted bitter. Sorrowful. Despairing.

He knew it was his fault. They would seek strength, comfort, and assurance in their next Prime. And what did they get to hang their hopes on? A crippled retro rat unable to piece together his broken family. He didn't know the first thing about leadership. He didn't know the first thing about these bots and how attached they had been to Optimus. He didn't know anything about their crusade here on Earth. He didn't know anything about humans, any of Megatron's treachery, how they got their energon, nothing. He didn't even know what to do with Optimus's body.

He was no hope. He was condemnation.

"Bulk—BULKHEAD! Put me down!"

Nightflier looked up at the sharp rebuke towards another mech. Deep, true yet weak laughter echoed out.

"No can do, Nights. Take it from a Wrecker: brothers stick together—siblings stick together."

He blinked across the base as the heavy and squat green mech walked his way, fighting a small black bundle that was thrashing in his arms. The red-horned Cliffjumper trotted along behind him. Briefly, Nightflier could see the flash of seeker wings.

"I said put me down!" she shouted. She squirmed, an almost incomprehensible twisting and tiny mass that nearly slipped from Bulkhead's grip. However, dealing with his own wiggling human had given him the dexterity he needed to keep his hold on her. "You don't understand!"

"I understand perfectly fine," he told her as they came closer. Nightflier sat up straight, blue optics pinned on that tiny black, writhing body. "You're just scared, and I promise it'll be all right. He's gonna love you."

"Put me down! Put me down, or I so swear, I'll—" Her threat was interrupted by a squeak as Bulkhead grabbed her leg and flipped her upside down, momentarily distracting her with a whirling world. He then flipped her upright and turned her shoulders so she faced the medical berth in front of her, and she gasped thinly before backing smack into his stomach.

Wild orange optics. They blazed out at him from inside a face that reminded him so much of his mother it hurt. She had that same helm. And almost every inch of her was coated in black with glowing accents of orange that smoldered with just as much fire as her optics.

His throat worked. Finally, after a moment in which he could only return her stare, he managed to rasp, "Nights?"

She flinched back into Bulkhead again, as if spooked by a specter of the dead. The edge of his lips pulled with the effort of a disbelieving smile, and he reached out his hands to her. She shrank. "N-Nights? Oh Primus . . ." His optics dragged up and down her. "I-Is it really you?"

Shamefully, his voice broke. Her jaw opened and closed, and she trembled, but she couldn't formulate any words back for him.

A weak laugh fell from him. "Of course it's you, sorry, stupid question, I just . . ." When she failed to move, he reached his hands out to her. "Come here." Her optics flared with no small amount of alarm. A smile tugged his mouth again, and he laughed, deep and weak at her timid nature. "C'mere! I can't hug you when you're all the way over there. Heh, look at you, all dressed up in black, for shame Nights, that's way too sexy . . . C'mere, please Nights! C'mon, c'mere . . ."

When she failed to move, Bulkhead gave her a gentle prodding and pushed her forward. She dug her toes into the ground, trying to fight it. Her lips trembled. Finally, she rasped out, "You're dead."

That garnered a laugh. Nightflier chuckled softly, his laugh like the rumble of distant thunder. "I'm right here, Nights. I'm all right. C'mere, please? It's all right, we're all right."

He watched as tears stung her optics. "But you're dead," she finally whispered again, trembling and biting her lip. She shook her head. "You're dead . . . I'd feel you in my spark . . ."

Nightflier wet his lips, resisting the urge to jump up and hug her in case he would scare her. "I don't know why we can't feel each other," he murmured to her. "But I'm right here. Here, touch me. You'll know it then. C'mere Nights . . ."

Bulkhead pushed her forward a little more until they were within arm's length of each other. Nightflier smiled, and he reached his arm out until he felt a painful twinge in his back. He wiggled his fingers as if it would help him stretch further out to her. Hesitantly, he watched her as she lifted claw-tipped fingers different from his own, and she slowly reached out. Her hand faltered between them, but finally, she touched him, sliding her hand into his.

Another relieved laugh choked in the back of his throat. "See? That's it. I'm just as much real as you are. I'm right here, Nights."

Her chassis began to seize. "But—But I saw . . . You're not . . ."

She collapsed so quickly he didn't have time to try and catch her. She just fell to her knees and began sobbing. Feeling something in his spark either breaking or healing, he wasn't sure quite yet with all the passion tearing at him, but he did ignore his wounds as best he could and picked her up, pulled her close. She fought for a moment, hitting him a couple of times before she curled up as close as she could to him. Wrapping his arms tightly around her, Nightflier held his sister close, only halfway aware of the tears dripping from his cheeks.

"Shh, it's okay, Nights, I'm right here . . . You're okay . . . We're gonna be just fine, it's all right, shh . . . "

Nightflier rocked her gently, letting her cry the tears she'd kept bottled up for so long. Alternately, he pressed his cheek against her helm, dropping kisses here and there, and he closed his optics. Now, after so long . . . She was right here. She was ALIVE. His throat tightened, and he tried not to bawl his optics out. After so long, he didn't have to live with the bitter thought that she had died. His first ray of sunshine cut through the darkness, shedding some light like the early morning sun.

He waited and waited for her to stop crying, rocking her, kneading between her wings, kissing her, whispering little whimsical nothings, but it didn't seem to help. She just shuddered with tears, and finally, unable to take it any longer, Nightflier mustered up a laugh.

"Now, c'mon, Nights, it's not that horrible to see me again, is it?"

She promptly hit him in the side. It wasn't that hard because she considered his condition, but he gave a mock grunt overlapped with another chuckle. He passed a hand down her wings. She was in one piece. Perfect, solid, beautiful condition. "Ow! Now now, Nights, that wasn't nice in the least!"

She made a sound unable to be place, a cross between a sob, a shout, and utter frustration. She lifted her head, optics covered in a film of tears. "You—YOU—I thought you were dead and all you can do is tease me!"

"Easy, easy, I'm sorry," he said, backtracking so quickly he almost tripped over himself. Still, he had to grin before he could stop it, and he hugged her tightly again with a laugh. "Nights-Nights!" And he found he couldn't get anything comprehensible out of his mouth other than relieved and happy laughter that she was alive.

He pulled back quickly again, taking her shoulders and holding her out at arm's length again. His lips curled into a rueful smile. "Gosh Nights, look at you . . . You've went and grown up on me! You're beautiful."

He watched as the heat of embarrassment filled her cheeks. "N-Nightflier . . ."

His smile broadened and he shook his head. "You know what this means, don't you?"

She looked up quickly, stuttering, "U-Uh . . . Um . . . What?"

"Well, I'm going to have to beat off the mechs with an energon prod! That's what!" Laughing at the surprised expression that crossed her features, Nightflier brought her in close for another quick hug and kiss on her cheek. He pulled away again, a wistful and homesick look overcoming him. "Look at you. Oh Primus, look at you, you look so much like Mum . . ."

She bit her lip hesitantly, and her wings fluttered. "Well . . . Now who's about to cry?"

He blinked widely at her a moment, and then he laughed a warm laugh, the rich deep sound vibrating across armor like a physical caress. "THAT'S my Nights!" and he laughed again, pulling her into a quick hug that she was finally able to give back with full force. He leaned back just enough to press his forehead to her. "All right, now give me a smile." At his words, he saw her blink, orange optics filled to the brim with wonder. He grinned. "C'mon, give me a smile. Just one? Pretty please? C'mon, lemme see you smile! You can do it!"

A rueful smile tugged her lips apart, and Nightflier laughed at her annoyed expression. "You're such a dummy, you know that?" he heard her mutter.

He chuckled, nuzzling their helms affectionately. "Preaching to the choir," he said, using a sudden human euphemism.

There was a polite clearing of a throat. "Nightfall. I do believe we have put off introductions long enough."

Nightflier looked up—and he looked up. The tallest mech stood in front of him, and Nightflier blinked, feeling like a small speck next to him. "Um . . ." Unbidden, Nightstalker let go and sat beside him, leaving him to speak. "Ah, yes. I'm—I'm Nightflier but, ah . . . I'm Prime. So they said my new name was supposed to be Nightfall?"

He could have smacked himself. That sounded more like a question, not a statement. Way to sound like he had an ounce of self-confidence.

He mech nodded respectfully. "My name is Ultra Magnus. I will be your second in command."

Nightflier struggled not to drop his head. His second in command. He didn't even know HOW to command! Covering up the insecurities about his lack of qualification, he just had to nod and say, "Well met. I, ah, I suppose I'll be working with you a lot more. I'll need, um, someone to teach me."

He arched a brow at him. "You have never commanded a unit?"

He tried not to squirm. "Um . . . No." Feeling the need to, he designated himself fully for the commander's ease. "Nightflier of Kaon, sixth addition to the Protectobots, warrior class, function: espionage, reporting from Kalis, Cybertron . . . sir."

He heard his foot tapping, and he forcibly stopped himself from doing the nervous habit of shuffling his peds. Instead, he looked up to where Ultra Magnus had his lips pursed as he contemplated the Prime.

Unable to look at him, Nightflier dropped his helm down to his peds. He knew what he was thinking. Here he was, a warrior whose main function was espionage, not hand-to-hand combat, he was small enough to almost step on, a seeker whose stereotype unfortunately associated with the Decepticons, son of the previous Decepticon air commander, and he was crippled. Yeah. That just boded well.

"It seems I have my work cut out for me."

He accidentally winced at the commander's words. "Sorry," he apologized reflexively. Then, realizing he was in charge and he wasn't supposed to say he was sorry for that, nor should he be sorry for whom he was, he apologized, "I'm sorry," again, cringing at how spineless he sounded.

Taking a breath and trying to hide everything he felt, Nightflier looked up at the rest of the bots in the room. "Well, I know Arcee and Smokescreen, and Ratchet here. And," he nodded towards Bulkhead, "you're presumably Bulkhead, if my sister's screaming had to do anything about that."

Bulkhead laughed at that, a small grin coming to his face plates. "Yeah, that's me. I'm Bulkhead. Uh—! Warrior class."

Nightflier nodded, and before he could respond, a voice cut in, "He's forgetting he's a Wrecker, too," and his attention came to rest on a white mech with red and green stripes. He gave him a lazy salute, saying, "Wheeljack, Wrecker, and warrior class."

Cliffjumper waved his hand. "My name's Cliffjumper. I'm warrior class too, but ah, um, not sure how to break this gently other than to say I hope we don't have any energon prods around here."

Nightflier pursed his lips and raised a brow. "Yeah. I was tipped off by a human I will be forever grateful to. You can be sure we're gonna talk later." Nightstalker elbowed him threateningly, but Cliffjumper raised his hands in surrender.

"Whatever you want."

Arcee shrugged. "Warrior class."

Smokescreen grinned. "Actually, I'm just a rookie, believe it or not."

Nightflier laughed before he could stop. "Really?" His grin faltered a little in remembrance, but he couldn't help but shake his head at the thought. A rookie—Prime. He would have been Prime if not for himself.

A waving hand caught his attention, and Nightflier looked up to see optics so big that they would swallow even his own. The black and yellow bot attached to them smiled—he could see it in his optics though he didn't have a mouth. *Hi! I'm Bumblebee, and I'm a scout*

Nightflier nodded, waving back. "Hello." Nightstalker tugged on his arm and pulled his attention down.

"Don't let him fool you," she whispered secretively. "He's close enough to be a brother."

He grinned. "Oh he is?" He looked back up to the scout, and the mech just twittered self-consciously, blushing and backing away. As he did, he quickly went over everyone's names again. Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Smokescreen, Arcee, Bulkhead, Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Ultra Magnus. He could handle this. Maybe.

"Hey! What, we don't count anymore?"

Nightflier blinked, and he turned his head in the direction of the voice. A small human with bright pink pigtails hurried forward, trailed by two boys, and Nightflier stared down at her when she came to stand right in front of his peds. She pointed her thumb to her chest. "I'm Miko!" She pointed to the other two. "That's Jack, and that's Raf. We all thought you were dead!"

Nightflier gave a self-conscious smile, saying, "Yes, I seem to have this unfortunate rumor around me that I'm dead. But I'm not."

Nightstalker shifted next to him. "Fli-Ni . . . How DID you survive? I mean—I saw you blasted into a million pieces!"

"Ah, well," and he smiled nervously, shaking his head. "If you looked hard enough, I'm sure you would have found my leg . . ."

A strangled sound choked her. "NIGHTFLIER!"

His face pulled, and his hands flapped as he waved off her concern. "Sorry! Sorry! But . . ." He paused, brows cinching. "I . . . suppose I ought to start from the beginning, I guess. The bomb."

Nightstalker sucked in a breath, and she nodded. Nervously, she echoed, "Okay."

Nightflier frowned, an expression he usually never wore. After a moment, he vented and rubbed a hand over his forehead. The prickles of pain began to come back full force, agonizing with deep throbs as he brought his mind back.

"Well, I guess I ought to start by saying that I should have STAYED dead."

Nightstalker literally jerked next to him, and she scowled moodily. "Nice way to start," she muttered, chills crawling over her circuits.

Nightflier held up his hands in surrender, saying only, "It's true though." He reached over and took her hand, thumb circling the back of it soothingly. "The theory was I was blown up, and the force of the explosion sent me flying—the beam I was under would have ripped my leg off—and I landed smack in front of a bot named First Aid."

"First Aid?" Ratchet burst before he could stop himself. The medic suddenly snapped to full attention.

Nightflier nodded. "Yeah. Blessing from Primus, huh?" He suddenly looked over at Ratchet. "It . . . It's really an honor, meeting you." His words made Ratchet suddenly sputter in embarrassment, and he nodded. "Yeah. You were First Aid's idol. He always wanted to be able to equal your abilities in the medical field, so he always studied very hard and did his best."

Ratchet stuttered again, wiped speechless, unable to do anything with the praise he received. "I—Well. Was he the medic that took care of your wings?"

Nightflier nodded, feeling an uncomfortable shadow pass over him. "Sure was." He smiled, shaking his head. "He did what he could, but I'm just grateful he got me flight worthy again."

The CMO shook his head, and he crossed his arms. "Nightflier, whatever I'm dealing with about your wings is baffling. First Aid has far surpassed me in that retrospect, and you can tell him that the next time you see him. His work is impressive."

Nightflier blushed in pride for his brother, and he tried to convey Ratchet's words over the bond, but they were much too far apart for his actual message to make it through. Instead, he just shoved as much pride as he could at him, leaving First Aid a stumbling, confused mess on the other side.

Hitching up his legs, Nightflier sat crisscross before finally saying, "So yeah. Blown up, and I landed at First Aid's peds. He filled me in on most of the details of what happened later. Apparently, I was dead when he first found me, but . . ." He waved his hand. "Some medical jargon things, and a little spark surgery and he kept me alive at all costs."

He shook his head and fluttered his wings. As much as he refused to let go of Nightstalker's hands, she wouldn't let go of his. "I was in critical condition for a good while, and I was in stasis for nearly a vorn. 68 years."

Nightstalker gaped at him. "68 years?" To Cybertronians, it was barely a pittance of their lifetime, but it could still be considered a hefty amount of time for stasis.

Her brother just shrugged. "After Kaon was taken, the Protectobots were low on resources. If First Aid had done what was best for the team, he wouldn't have wasted resources trying to keep me online, but . . ." A fond smile tilted his mouth plates. "They all got rather attached to what they assumed was the last living sparkling."

Nightflier began to jiggle his knees restlessly. Nightstalker's spark warmed at the nostalgic sight, and Nightflier carefully kept his back wounds away from the optics of the rest of the bots. "I was in real bad shape—had myself a highly critical spark, down one leg, crushed wings and one nearly blasted from its socket, burned protoform, no optics for the longest, and severe spark break." He shifted uncomfortably at the last part, still uncertain about not feeling his sister's spark even though she was right there in front of him. He tried to lighten the mood by saying, "The guys used to tease me when First Aid only had enough supplies to salvage one optic. I can't tell you how many times they screamed, 'It's Shockwave!' and ran off in the other direction" He snorted. "THAT was annoying."

When the comment gained a couple chuckles, Nightflier couldn't help but let his lip curl up ruefully. Nightstalker just stared with wide optics, and Nightflier chuckled and leaned forward, nuzzling their helms together again as he told his tale. "Anyways, First Aid couldn't figure out why I was still locked in stasis, but he eventually suspected that it was the spark break keeping me down."

Ratchet gaped, suspecting where this was headed. "You can't be serious. A spark bond in the middle of war?"

Nightflier laughed a deep laugh, and he grinned rakishly at the flabbergasted CMO. "Hey, I never said he wasn't gutsy! Either way, it wasn't a BOND bond, but Nightstalker certainly has a step brother." Suddenly animated, his optics dilated with wide excitement. "Oh, you'd love him, Nights! He's the sweetest thing in the universe."

Finally, the ghost of a smile chased across Nightstalker's face. "Well, he'd certainly have to compete with the CUTEST thing in the universe . . ." He heard Bumblebee's laughter tinkle in the background.

Instead, Nightflier pouted his lips. "Aw, you mean I'M not the cutest?" He sent her a pair of precious playful puppy dog eyes, and Nightstalker blinked wide, suddenly realizing what the cogs of her mind refused to put together:

He was alive.

ALIVE.

Here in this room. He was alive, and she had cried. And that's all she had done because she hadn't been able to comprehend—she was sitting here just looking at him like an idiot!

He was fragging ALIVE!

With a sudden squeal, Nightstalker launched herself at Nightflier, his teasing finally hitting home. He laughed at her as she wrapped her arms around his neck, squealing, "Fli-Ni!" She nearly knocked him over with the strength of her hug, and Nightflier grunted, only glad she hadn't knocked him into the berth or he would have been in a world of pain.

Still for all he was worth, his laughter was loud and infectious, his grin bright and contagious. "Well hello to you too, sis!" He chuckled, wrapping his arms around her and hefting her into his lap. Instead, he found himself assaulted by a barrage of kisses here and there, all over his face, and he wrinkled up his features. "Aw, Nights, stop it, you're embarrassing me!"

He felt the heat of energon burning his cheeks when quiet laughter rippled through the room because of the touching reunion. "Get over it!" she told him, and he felt himself nearly choked by the strength at which she hugged him. "I missed you!"

As much as he loved his sister, he couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious at being the center of attention. He felt his face practically glowing with a blush. "Aw, c'mon, Nights, I miss you too, but watch it! I'm a wounded mech!" And, her armor was pinching his protoform.

Nightstalker suddenly popped up, poked her glossia out at him, and accused, "Weakling," before kissing his cheek again and pressing her helm against his. Though he was flushed so much everyone in the room could see it, his corner of his lips had to tip up. Yeah, he missed her.

"Well, I need to ask," and Nightflier looked up to Ratchet. The medic was frowning as he asked, "What was done to your back and wings? I've never seen such injuries."

Nightflier's smile faltered. Just when he thought he was going to have to ask the others to leave the room for his comfort's sake, Cliffjumper immediately lifted his hands.

"Whoa. I am OUT. I'll see you later guys, I'm gonna take the kids and play some rounds of video games."

Cliffjumper came forward and he lowered his two hands, letting the kids pile on. Raf looked at him curiously, Miko waved and hollered that they'd have some fun later after Doc Bot drilled him, but Jack didn't leave, looking at him with a slight dash of worry. Bumblebee trotted behind them, claiming he wanted to play too. Bulkhead said he'd watch the kids. They all made excuses to get away, and it slowly occurred to Nightflier that it wasn't them being sensitive about how he felt about it, they just really didn't want to be in a medical conversation with Ratchet.

That left the little medical corner with just Dreadwing quietly alienated to the side, Ratchet, Nightstalker, Jack, and Ultra Magnus. It took Nightflier a second to realize he was there, but he noticed him when he tried to move to the side to get a look at his wound. Nightflier quickly turned to face him so he couldn't see it, jerking too fast so a small spasm rocked his frame, and he swallowed, looking up at Ultra Magnus. The commander blinked, assessing his self-conscious hiding of it.

"I need to know about the wound, Nightfall."

The gentle reminder that he was Prime almost hit like a slap in the face. Nightflier felt himself flush brightly in shame, and he dropped his face, muttering, "My wings are ripped off. I'm sure you can gather what that entails, I just . . . don't want more people seeing it than those that need to."

Ultra Magnus considered his request with pinched brows, but nodded respectfully, not quite understanding his need to hide it.

It took Nightflier a moment longer, but he suddenly realized that they were waiting on him to speak. "Oh! Um . . . Well, by all means, if I wasn't dead, then I should at leave have lost my wing. The blast nearly ripped it from its sockets—the biomechanisms were ruined, the protoform around it literally stripped by the fire, and both wings were mangled."

His optics dimmed and darkened briefly at the remembrance of his disability. "I'm sure you can see it, Ratchet," he told the medic, and the CMO came around to see the wound, "but he cut out the protoform that was ruined by the fire. It wasn't healing, and it was slowing the healing process."

"And he replaced your biomechanical bolts with non-biomechanical. The only way that could have been done was with your pain receptors still on, correct?"

Nightflier instinctively flinched in remembrance. His servos tightened on Nightstalker's, feeling the phantom pains rip up and down his back. "Yeah," he said a little weakly. It by far topped the worst agony he had ever felt when First Aid had reattached his wing. The drilling had probably been the worst part, but everything in the operation had hurt. He didn't know how many times he had blacked out. How long he had screamed. He didn't know how First Aid had the strength to go through with it, much less himself.

Ratchet seemed to pause too at the thought of the operation happening to his sensitive wings. "Your will is staggering," he finally murmured. "How did you manage pain like that?"

Nightflier shrugged a nervous shoulder. "Pain's inevitable; suffering's optional."

Nightstalker shifted, and she bit her lip nervously. "Fli-Ni? How long did it take before you could fly?"

He physically stilled. For a moment, he couldn't say anything, and then, he cleared his throat, rasping, "Four thousand nine hundred seventy-two years." One hundred seventy-eight days, three hours, nine minutes, fourteen seconds. He knew it down to the nanoclick how long he had gone without flight.

Nightstalker just stared, jaw slightly agape in horror. She had barely been able to bear eight weeks. But that long? She couldn't even comprehend a year.

"I had some—some really intense mental backlash over that," Nightflier admitted on a rasp. 4972 years. He shivered. "It was a black time in my life. I . . . well, putting it lightly, I slowly lost my mind. I couldn't bear not flying."

Ultra Magnus hiked up a brow. "Seekers lose their sanity over not being able to fly."

It was less of a question than him restating what he had previously said for confirmation. Nightflier shuffled his peds. Great. Another notch against him—he was eventually going to lose his mind. "Yeah," he said flatly. "Grounded seekers aren't common, but it's a common ailment for them. It's why you don't find many grounded seekers. Most of them usually commit suicide."

Nightstalker's grip tightened so suddenly it almost crushed his servos. She stared at him in horror, and he gave a weak smile. "Maybe once or twice . . . I had less of a death wish and more of, ah . . . I threw myself from great heights and tried to fly anyways."

She gaped at him. "You didn't."

He nodded. "I did." He chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "Pretty stupid when I look back on it, but . . . It was all I could think about. It was when I broke both legs and shattered my left shoulder's rotary cuff that First Aid had to put me on lockdown. I'd say this was probably somewhere in the 2000th year or so. I don't know. It all blurs, the time." He nervously shrugged. "Eventually I started to claw myself. Until I bled. They had to strap me down." He felt the phantom pains crawling, snapping, ripping, as if Megatron was tearing off his wings again. He gripped Nightstalker tighter, tensing, trying to ignore the stabbing pain. "Then, I lose what happened. I just remember a lot of screaming, a lot of despair, a lot of darkness. Then I pick up again with First Aid telling me he can attach my wing."

Nightflier shook his head. "I didn't care how much it hurt at that point. I just needed to fly, and I was willing to do anything for the chance."

He didn't realize he was gasping. He didn't realize how much pain he was in until Ratchet placed a gentle servo on his shoulder, saying, "Easy. Deep breaths. You're stressing yourself. Phantom pain?"

Nightflier gritted his dentures and nodded jerkily. "It'll pass," he managed tightly. Deliberately, he cycled several calming breaths, gripping Nightstalker's hands tighter for comfort. Cycling steadily, Nightflier waited for the pain to pass. It always did. And it never lasted for too long. It was just agonizing when it came.

After several more moments, Nightflier vented and straightened, relaxing his grip on Nightstalker. A brief silence overtook them, and Nightflier heard a polite clearing of a throat. He looked down seeing Jack looking at him curiously.

"Um . . . If you want me to, to cover your wound, I'm sure my mom and I could get some satin bed sheets. They'd be long enough to cover it up and soft enough."

After a pause, Nightflier nodded gratefully towards him. "Thank you. I would appreciate that."

Nightflier jumped when Ratchet performed another sudden scan on him, and the medic grumbled disapprovingly. He came around, and Nightflier shifted uncomfortably when he scrutinized his back. "Nightfall," he said, "your condition is perplexing. Your self-repair mechanisms should have stopped you from bleeding, but you continue to bleed from your wing joints."

Nightflier shrugged. "You can't stop it. Think of it like a triple changer getting a propeller yanked out." Ratchet grunted in understanding. "It doesn't bleed much. It's more like an . . . OOZE anyways." Nightflier looked up to him. "Can you tell me why I can't feel Nightstalker in my spark?"

It took Ratchet a moment. His brows cinched as he considered it, crossing his arms and touching his chin. "Perhaps . . . It was the very fact that you died. That your spark ceased beating for that brief time before First Aid revived you. When you died, the bond would have immediately been severed. It wasn't something as simple as her falling into stasis. It was permanent." Ratchet paused. Then, he looked at the both more critically. "Or . . . perhaps . . ."

Nightflier and Nightstalker both blinked at him. "Perhaps, what?" they both asked at the same time.

Ratchet stood up straight. "Your bonds. You bonded to First Aid," and he pointed to Nightflier, "and you bonded to Knockout," and he pointed to Nightstalker.

Nightflier's brows shot up. He turned his attention to his sister. "You're bonded? Who's Knockout?"

Nightstalker blushed slightly. "Um . . . The medic who found me. He's a Decepticon still."

"In other words," Ratchet interrupted, "even IF you could have managed to feel each other when you were revived, the new bonds could have smothered your ability to feel each other. Regardless of how it happened, it's an easy fix. Reacclimatize the bond."

Nightflier's optics alighted; Nightstalker's optics widened. They turned to each other at the same time.

"We can fix it! Let's—"

"No! We can't—"

Their overlapping voices stopped at the same time. Nightflier's grin faded, and Nightstalker blanched.

"Nights?"

She stood so suddenly that she almost tripped backwards. She ripped her hands from his, unconcealed panic rising in the back of her blazing orange optics. "W-We can't," she stammered.

"Yes we can," Nightflier persisted. He frowned in worry, something foreboding clenching at his spark. "We can easily fix the bond, Nights, why . . . why . . ."

He couldn't even bring himself to say it. Something tight constricted his throat as he watched her take another step away from him. "We can't," she repeated weakly. "I—I . . ."

"Nights—"

"I won't do it!" she snapped suddenly. Hot tears sparked in her optics, and Nightflier felt pain slice through his spark at her denial of him. "You don't understand! I—I can't—I won't do it! I won't—"

_I won't expose myself._

That was her fear. Exposing herself naked to him and letting him see into her spark again and see the evils that lurked there, and gleeful torture embedded into every aspect of her past, how many lives she had taken in the cruelest ways possible, the screams that grated in her memory banks, the splattering energon. Not the torture. He couldn't see that. He couldn't see what she had done with Megatron. Not the interfacing. So much depraved salacity staining her body like permanent hand prints that gleamed in the darkness. The kinky positions, the rough gropes, bites, sticky transfluid, shackled bondage. So much sin.

It stained her. Her brother was a pure Prime, chosen and sacred while she was a glitch and a whore wallowing in the mire she had created of her own free will.

And the rape. She could never show him that. She could never let him in with that in her past. She couldn't expose herself again.

Nightflier stared in growing horror as she drew away from him. "Nights, wait—"

He reached out to her, and she jolted before turning and fleeing. Panic tore across his senses—he was losing her!

He lurched to his peds, ignoring the pain that flared up his back as he tried to stumble after her. "Nightstalker, wait! Please! Nights!"

Shamelessly, his voice broke in unadulterated panic as she darted outside, transformed, and flew away, out of his reach. Cliffjumper ran out after her since Nightflier couldn't, transforming and driving after her, shouting her name.

Nightflier staggered to the side, bracing himself against Ratchet's work area, staccato breaths yanking from his vents. Betrayal lanced across his spark so painfully it might as well have drawn energon.

She refused to fix the broken bond. She didn't want him. Nightflier fell on his knees, slamming back into the wall, and he spasmed in pain when he hit his fresh wounds. A gasp and a cry warped in his vocalizer. He curled up, dropping his face and servos gripping his helm, claws nearly scratching into the paint as raw agony poured into his spark. He couldn't comprehend what had just happened. The rejection. It hurt. It stung. It wounded. It gouged. It maimed. The one he loved most in all the world, had missed his whole life and had reunited with refused him. Denied him. It was just like Kaon—he had lost her again.

She had chosen to turn her back on him.


	58. I'm Sorry

**Author's Note:**

**DUDE. Daft Punk's song _"Father and Son" _freaking inspires everything about Nightflier and Dreadwing.**

* * *

><p>Being around his father was just awkward.<p>

It wasn't just what he had done. It was the fact that Nightflier didn't know what his father was thinking. Sure, everyday Nightstalker made sure to talk to the alienated air commander, but it was mostly just stuff about Bumblebee, or when that became too stressing, stuff about Ratchet or Cliffjumper. Never about him. Never about himself. Never about her. It was like they had a silent truce on what things they could talk about, and the family wasn't one. Her secrets were hers; his secrets were his; Nightflier's oppression was his own.

It bothered him. Nightflier didn't know what to do, but he knew he couldn't forgive him. Could he? No, no he couldn't. He knew what growing up hungry was like. Nearly starving into shutdown. Missing his parents. Crying—but no, he couldn't cry, not when Nightstalker was and she looked to him for strength. He couldn't cry, no, he had to bottle it up and pretend to be something he wasn't. He knew how many times he had gotten beat when he stole credits or energon and was caught. How shunned they had been for being street urchins.

It just made it hard for him to keep his grudge. He didn't know why. Dreadwing hadn't said anything to him and he hadn't even LOOKED at him. It was just something palpable in the air that felt so sober that it stifled him. It made him uncomfortable. It made his energon tanks curl. Guilt? No, he didn't feel guilty. Apprehensive, maybe? Nightflier wasn't sure.

In all, he just couldn't take it.

Ratchet was deep in some formula Nightflier had failed to ask about yet, all the bots had been sent out on energon scouting missions by Ultra Magnus, Ultra Magnus himself was probably out on one too if that accounted for his absence, and Dreadwing was no option. Heaving himself up to his peds, Nightflier's movements immediately brought Ratchet's hawk-like gaze to him.

"Where are you going?"

Nightflier shrugged a shoulder, almost wincing at the pain that brought. "Nowhere," he said a bit more glumly than he should have. "If you haven't noticed, I'm missing the most important limbs to get somewhere." Stopping and closing his optics, Nightflier vented and calmed his wired emotions. "Sorry," he apologized offhandedly. "I'm just going for a walk. I don't know. Stretch my legs. You wanted me to get moving, right? Well, I'm moving."

Ratchet peered at him critically before giving him an irritated click. "Fine. Don't go far."

Nightflier had to bite back a sour, "Not that I could," and instead just made his way across the base. He stopped. He circled it slowly once, looking at it all, and he duly noted that even the humans were gone. Maybe with their families? He sighed to himself. They would have taken his mind off things. Certainly Miko. She was a bundle of excited, cheerful fire that he could use right now.

Instead, Nightflier glanced back at Ratchet who was once again buried deep in the formula and to his father who still didn't look at him but merely kept his drifting gaze on the far wall.

_I need some sunlight._

The need was kneejerk. He had been cooped up in these walls for too long. He wanted out. Period. There was no more thought than that, so Nightflier slipped out of the slightly ajar door, a feat made easy since his wings weren't there. He felt the satin bed sheet Mrs. Darby had provided swish against him slightly as he walked.

Immediately, the sun blasted him. Bright. Blinding. Warm. Shuttering his optics, he leaned slightly against the wall of the new base and cycled a breath to roll the tension off his shoulders. He turned his face up to the sun, welcoming its heat and love since it seemed to be the only thing willing to embrace him.

The openness of the outdoors helped immediately. Though his spark ached something fierce for the sky, Nightflier shook off the oppression clouding his mind and walked aimlessly around, not really certain of where he was going.

Somehow, his life had fallen apart. Here he was, expected to be Prime, and he didn't know the first thing about BEING a Prime. He was supposed to be happy to have his father back, but he couldn't forgive him for grievances of long ago. He was supposed to rejoice because his sister was alive, and she refused to reunite them with their bond. He missed the Protectobots, and First Aid was too far away to talk to over their stretched bond, only enough to know the fact that they were both still alive.

So wrapped up in his woes, Nightflier didn't watch where he was stepping, and outside of one of the barracks his foot hit the front end of a land rover and he threw his hands out to catch himself. The landing jarred him, and he hissed in pain as agony bloomed over his irritated wound. Gritting his dentures, Nightflier pushed himself back up to a sitting position just in time to hear,

"WHOA . . . Holy shit—I mean . . . Dude, are you all right?"

"You kidding me? Look at that thing! Guys! Come look at this!"

"We're not seriously supposed to see them."

"Is that still in effect? I thought after that issue with the big bad robot fortress we might be in the clear to see them . . ."

"You know, I don't know if they ever really cleared that up . . ."

Nightflier blinked widely as a couple humans quickly became a group of humans. The military soldiers, he slowly registered as he quickly became the center of attention, points and whispers and every explicative sworn in undertones. His optics shuttered again as he counted all nine men and women, and finally, he realized his vocalizer was still intact.

"Um . . . Hello."

All chatter stopped for a moment before it came back in full, excited force as elbows were thrown, whispers and excited laughter. Nightflier blinked. Was he really worth this much excitement? "Um," he tried again, and the instant he spoke every human fell silent, "If you're not supposed to see me, I'll leave. I mean, I don't want to cause any trouble . . ."

"They never said you guys were intelligent," someone suddenly piped up.

There came a laugh at the front, and Nightflier's optics turned down at him. It felt weird, looking down on someone. He had been the short one all his life, constantly looking up at others. "Sorry," the man apologized. "We don't mean to stare, it's just the first time we've seen one of you guys."

Nightflier's brows went up. "Really?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Though, I've gotta admit, you look weird. What's up with . . ." and he gestured indefinitely from his waist to his neck.

Remembering he was still clad in only half his armor, unable to wear the upper half because of his wounds, Nightflier laughed a rich and handsome sound that filled the air. "What, did you think I was just a robot?" he asked. There was a pause, and then nods along with a general murmur. Nightflier felt his brows arch. Were they all this ignorant of Cybertronians? Then again, he couldn't say much. He had little to no interaction with humans. It was probably a prime time to recertify that mistake.

He nodded his helm to them all. "My name is Nightflier, Fli-Ni for short. Well, actually, with my new title, it's supposed to be Nightfall Prime, but I'd prefer Nightflier when I'm just around you guys."

The first one grinned, moustache curling. "All right then. Nightflier. My name's Fernando 'D.O.A.' Martinez. Pleased to meet ya."

Nightflier smirked ruefully at the given nickname "Dead On Arrival" and the next quickly introduced himself as, "James 'Clothesline' McQueen. At your service."

"Casey 'Casino' Duff," another said, rolling a pair of dice between her fingers.

"Unfortunately, I'm known as Shawn 'Angel' White, due to being a medic who apparently wears too much white."

"Igor Popov, affectionately known as 'Iggy Pop'."

"Bob 'Prophet' Bailey."

"Carter 'Double Down' Jenkins."

"Bobbie 'Boobie' Marks."

"Ryan 'Timber' Davis."

Nightflier quickly put each person in his databanks, determined to remember every one of them. It was easy since his processor easily created files, and he wondered if he would ever take them off guard. Nine new files nestled in his mind entitled with names and filled with the basics of each person, their appearance and apparent descent, whether Spanish, British, Russian, or "full-blooded American." Iggy Pop was clearly the only one that was Russian-born-American, and there were only two women amongst a dozen men. Casey had a shrewd look in her eyes, and Nightflier immediately knew not to engage her in any dice games with that look. She probably could swindle everything these men owned and get away with it with a nickname like "Casino." Poor "Boobie" had clearly earned her nickname from her generously endowed chest.

"Well, we're completely sentient like you guys are," Nightflier told the eagerly awaiting people. "As for why I look funny, hm . . . Well, I suppose it's not too different how you guys wear clothing over your skin. We wear our armor over our protoform." He extended his arm down. "I'm SOMEWHAT squishy."

"Protoform," the sawdust brown topped male asked, and Nightflier pegged him as Timber. He took his turn to poke and squeeze his forearm. "So it's like your skin?"

"You got it."

"Huh." He made a sound under his breath. He quirked a brow up, squinting past a glint of sunlight. "So how much ARE you guys like us?"

Nightflier's brow cinched as he thought about it. He sat down fully since he had started conversation with, apparently, nine new friends. "You know, I don't actually know," he mused. "I guess we're a lot alike. Shaped the same, act the same, dress the same . . . I suppose not that much different. I'm just metal."

"How about your sex life?"

That garnered several laughs and several swears as well as punches to Boobie who just grinned unabashedly, short blond hair pulled back in a mini ponytail. Nightflier felt the heat of embarrassment singe his cheeks, but he couldn't help but grin a little. It had been too long since he'd been able to wind down like this. Just have a normal conversation. He hadn't really talked about stuff like this since, well, the Protectobots. And that included his sex life.

"Basically the same," he said with a quick usage of the internet that he almost regretted. "Though, I'm afraid I'm not the best in that area. I'm basically underused and ignorant."

That comment earned hearty laughter as well as a, "Poor baby!" exclaimed from Boobie. She also took the time to wink at him and tell him, "If you ever need to know anything, I can teach you everything there is to know." Nightflier blinked. At his apparently short-circuited expression, Boobie had to laugh again until tears sparked in her eyes.

"Aw, c'mon, man," and Double Down grinned at him. "Surely there are some girl robots out there for you."

A surprised look crossed Nightflier's face. "Well, yeah, I mean sure, of course there are femmes out there. I've had one or two, but they've never really left an impression . . ."

"When was the last time?" Double Down asked.

Nightflier considered the question for a moment before he finally thought—screw it. "Last time I can remember was when I got overcharged, or in your human vernacular—WASTED."

That brought a great round of laughter that Nightflier had to share in, thinking of that particular time the Protectobots had gotten him wasted. He couldn't even remember the femme, though he thought she had been yellow . . .

Angel finally arched a brow at him. "C'mon now. Surely there's a girl you've got your eyes on." When Nightflier could do nothing but blush hotly, that garnered another round of laughter at his expense. "All right, fess up! Who's the pretty lady?"

Nightflier only blushed more, and finally, he dropped his head and admitted, "Well, if there's only two femmes in our unit and one's my sister . . ."

An appreciative murmur. "We can see you guys come in," Iggy Pop told him. He jerked a thumb. "It's easy to tell which vehicles aren't military standard. Which one is she?"

"The blue motorcycle," Nightflier said.

Timber immediately punched D.O.A. "I told you that was a sexy machine!"

"Hey, wait a minute!" Casino pushed her way to the front. Short and spiky brown hair decorated the top of her head. "What do you transform into?"

Nightflier smiled wryly. "A jet."

"Nice! Can we see it? I mean, see you transform." Casino grinned. "I can't even imagine how that works."

General agreement rippled through the group of curious soldiers, once again astounding Nightflier with their eagerness to learn, but his smile finally flickered from his face. "Actually, I can't. I—Well, I was wounded."

Casino's smile dimmed too. "Aw, that's too bad. What happened?"

Nightflier shook his head, shifting uncomfortably. "Actually . . . wounded is putting it a bit lightly. It's more like . . . I was dismembered?" He looked down. "My um . . . My wings would have been on my back. I actually just came out because I really needed some fresh air. And sunshine."

"Aw, geez!" she swore lightly. "I'm sorry to hear about that!"

Nightflier was about to respond when he was suddenly bombarded by condolences.

"Chin up, kid, I'm sorry to hear it, but I'm sure you'll be able to tough it out."

"I'm sorry; man, I can't imagine something like that."

"Comes in our line of work. Don't let it get you down, I'm sure you'll be able to handle yourself."

As well as an almost unheard mutter of, "So THAT'S what the sheet was about . . ."

Nightflier blushed brightly with a bit of embarrassment, and he finally had to wave them off, saying, "It—It's all right, really . . . Thanks, you guys."

"No problem," and Clothesline lifted his fist, bald head gleaming in the sunlight. When Nightflier just blinked at the gesture, he grinned and said, "It's a fist bump."

"Oh! Um . . . So, like this?" and Nightflier uncertainly gave his first fist bump, making him laugh.

"Yeah! Just like that."

Finally, Nightflier had to smile at this group of humans, lips tilting up and optics softening against his will. "You guys? Thanks. I needed someone I could talk to."

D.O.A.'s brow lifted. "What, you can't talk to your friends in there?"

He nervously shrugged his shoulder in response. "I guess, but . . . I'm just the new guy and I'm supposed to be their leader and all . . ."

A shocked look crossed his face, so much so that his whiskers could have fallen off. "Seriously? You're the commander?"

Nightflier nodded uncomfortably. "Yeah. That's why I can't really talk to them in there. Not to mention I'm emotionally bagged down with family drama too, so I can't rightly just talk to my family either. So it's really nice, being able to talk to you guys. And girls," and he nodded towards Casino when she gave him a look.

"Well, anytime you want a chat," D.O.A. said, and he tipped his cap his way, "we'll all be around this place. Just give one of us a shout. I'm used to being a sounding board, but you might want to watch Timber here," and he grinned. "He's liable to be a bit of a dolt when it comes to emotional things."

"Hey, I'm not that bad!"

The forgotten Prophet immediately grabbed him in a headlock, giving him a noogie that made the man shout and punch him in his gut to make him let go. The scuffle was stopped as quick as it started, and Nightflier just felt his lips pull.

"Sure, I can remember that. Now, with names like you guys and gals have, there has GOT to be some interesting stories up your sleeves, am I right?"

Almost immediately they all glanced at Boobie, and a general chorus of, "Boobie's obvious," lit up his audios. She even lifted her hands in surrender, saying amid the voices, "I know! I'm obvious!" and it took them a minute to quite down for her voice to be heard. "But seriously. I was a sorry case. I was so nervous when I first joined up, I introduced myself as Boobie Marks instead of BOBBIE Marks. Pretty sad."

"No, what was SAD was Clothesline!"

When Timber pointed that out, another general roar went up of laughter, and Timber lunged across the group, looping his arm around the man's neck. Clothesline grinned ruefully as Timber's freckled face hurried to tell the story. "See here? First day of training he was late as a mother! He comes barreling in a full out run to get to his spot and I see him, so I just slam my arm down and WHAM! Oh SHIT he hit the floor so hard!"

Nightflier laughed, grinning as he inwardly winced at how much that clothesline had to have hurt. Clothesline rubbed his neck thoughtfully in remembrance, saying, "Y'know? I'm surprised I don't have some battle scars from that one . . ."

"Now me," Timber continued, and he pushed his way to the front, taking in the limelight like a sponge. "My name is MUCH more impressive. Undercover mission. And my job is to take out the communication's tower. Well, when all else failed, I found the enemy tank. They weren't supposed to have one, but hell with it. Prophet here helped me take it, and I aim that baby at the bottom of the tower and—" He made the standard explosion sound with his mouth, popping his fingers open for effect. "That tower started leaning without all four struts, and it leans and leans—"

"And LEANS, and LEANS," the rest of the group echoed in a stunning chorus that had Nightflier grinning. The classic, this-tale-has-been-told-one-too-many-times sorta thing.

Timber just waved his hand at them to shut them up, continuing, "So it leans and leans and leans, and since I'm seeing it go down, I shout out at the top of my lungs TIIIIMBEEEEEERRRR! And that sucker comes crashing down right on top of the enemy impound! I am brought home as the VIP hero of the day, cheers and parties." He held up his hands for his cheers and parties, garnering an unenthused, mocking, "Whoo-hoo," for the group.

D.O.A. just shook his head at Timber's antics. "You sure that's why you're called Timber?" he asked dubiously. He waggled bushy brows. "I thought it was for that straight-legged, slow-motion fall you do when you're completely wasted and hit the floor."

Appreciative "oooohs" and "ohhhhs" filled the air, as well as indignant shouts from Timber. He was wrestled back by Prophet, and Casino gripped her dice between her index and middle finger, pointing them like a gun in the distance. "Uh-oh. Nightflier, I think that one's for you."

Looking up, Nightflier saw Ultra Magnus's alt form roll up in front of the base doors, three hangars down. His shoulders sagged, and he felt his entire frame deflate.

"Slot."

Almost immediately, through the comm. link, he heard his apparent second in command cut in with a strict, _"Exactly what do you think you're doing, sir?"_

Before he could stop it, Nightflier came back with a very sarcastic, _"Getting some fresh air and making new friends. You might try it one day."_ He regretted it instantly. He almost winced for his stupidity. What was he, a sparkling again? A petulant sparkling?

The truck didn't move. _"They are not supposed to see us, Nightfall. What do you think you're doing? You are breaking protocol and human law."_

"Is he talking to you?"

Nightflier looked down at Prophet. "He sure is," he said to them, knowing Ultra Magnus was too far away to hear his voice unless he put it through the comm. "He's using our comm. link to talk because apparently, I'm breaching a code of etiquette."

Angel elbowed Iggy Pop. "Told you we weren't supposed to see them . . ." he muttered.

_"Nightfall. Return to base immediately."_

Nightflier shrugged a shoulder at them. "Well, we saw each other, so I guess that rule is shot to the Pit. I mean, how long did they really think they could keep us secret? We're huge compared to you . . . And good thing too. We're allies—we need to know each other, and I don't see what the good is in keeping secrets." He had had enough of the secrets with Nightstalker at this point.

"Well put!" D.O.A. praised him with a strong nod of his head his way.

To Ultra Magnus, Nightflier said, _"We've been happily having conversation for the past half hour to hour. Why keep secrets from our own allies? Besides, they're the first humans I've actually interacted with."_

_ "Sir, this frivolity is unbecoming of a Prime. You are breaking protocol, and Ratchet is beyond himself with anger. You have been gone too long, and he did not know where to look for you. He wants you back on his medical berth immediately."_

To that, Nightflier felt his hackles rear up. He was NOT a sparkling to be coddled. Wounded or not, he still had what little was left of his tattered pride. Straightening his back, satin sheet rippling with the movement, Nightflier shouted for them all to hear, "I am HURT! I am not DEAD!"

Casino tutted her tongue, shaking her head. "Ooh, should I even ASK what he said?"

"My second in command here," he said, jerking his thumb to the impatiently awaiting truck, "is telling me that my chief medical officer is DEMANDING that I come back to his medical berth—" Because, as short a time as he had known Ratchet and the tone of voice Ultra Magnus was speaking in, he KNEW that they were doing anything but asking nicely. The only reason it sounded so professional was because it was Ultra Magnus. "I am perfectly well enough to get around, or so he clearly forgets. He acts like I'm going to break apart at the drop of a hat."

Ultra Magnus's voice became flat and hard, so close to ordering him that he almost growled across the comm. link. _"Nightfall, please do not make this any more difficult than it already is. Come back to the base immediately, sir. Prime or not, you are still young and headstrong."_

Nightflier winced back and gritted his dentures, glaring in the general direction of the truck. "Well, if he thinks insulting me is going to get him anywhere . . ."

"Shit, what'd he say?" Timber asked eagerly.

Nightflier rolled his optics, looking back down at his nine new friends. "He called me young and headstrong." He snorted. "I haven't even DONE anything yet, and I'm—" He stopped midsentence, flinching when bright lights flicked, glinting loudly in his peripheral vision. He turned, optics widening at Ultra Magnus as he exploded, "Did he just FLASH his headlights at me?"

The impatient display irked him even more, but the second he finished his sentence, Timber was howling with laughter. On the tail of him went several more humans, and Nightflier turned his attention back down, saying defensively, "What?"

Boobie giggled madly, tears sparking in her eyes. "Honey, flashing your headlights has more than just one meaning here on Earth," she told him.

Blinking in confusion, Nightflier's answer came from Prophet who cleared his throat, saying with as straight a face as he could, "Flashing your headlights also means, typically in a girl's situation, that they've lifted up their shirt and bra and shown you their tits, nips and all."

Against his will, Nightflier immediately got an image of Ultra Magnus popping off his chassis plates to flash his chest at him, and he was torn between wanting to burn his optics out or post the image for everyone to see. Overall—

He LAUGHED.

Without warning, Nightflier suddenly found himself laughing, rich and deep laughter that drew from his gut so much that it hurt and throbbed through his back. But he couldn't stop it, and he couldn't stop the tears that sparked in his optics.

Apparently, even Ultra Magnus could hear their laughter, because he didn't press Nightflier again, just glared and waited for them to calm down so he could get a coherent word out of him. When the laughter slowly died down, Nightflier snickered, shaking his head and wiping his optics.

"By the Celestial Spires, I needed that."

_"Nightflier . . ."_

_ "Easy, sir, I'm coming."_

Smiling, Nightflier extended his hand down to his human friends. "Thank you guys a lot for talking to me."

"Sure, no problem! We were on break anyway!"

Immediately, he was come to with nine little handshakes, and he stood, waving to them all as he walked away and to his apparent doom.

* * *

><p>"Ratchet."<p>

He blinked, snapping out of his stupor as he turned towards Nightstalker. "Yes? What is it?"

Nightstalker glanced around the room once more. Dreadwing was on the far side, so he couldn't hear if they whispered. Nightflier was out walking when she had returned from her energon scouting, and none of the others had come back yet. She had logged her findings into the computer, per Ultra Magnus's instructions, but now . . . She had to try . . .

She bit her lip. "Ratchet, let me contact Knockout."

His fingers paused in their tapping. He looked back to her. "I'm . . . sorry?"

She dipped her helm. "Um . . . You said that Nightflier's wounds were beyond you . . . especially since he was a seeker. Well, Knockout's a Decepticon medic, and he's sure to have a lot more experience with seekers . . ."

Ratchet stared at her, and she could see the cogs turning the back of his processor as he debated the pros and cons of her proposition. Finally, he heaved a sigh, pinching his brow. "Nightstalker, what could possibly move him into helping us repair our Prime?"

"For one, he doesn't have to know he's Prime," Nightstalker stated. "Two . . . He owes me." After that stunt he pulled during the rape? He owed her for betraying her like that. If he didn't want to support her then, then he could provide this one last favor. She didn't care how she had to blackmail him.

Ratchet vented slowly, the entire situation clearly hurting his processor. Eventually, he made a defeated sound and muttered, "This is going to break protocol . . . Nightstalker, half brother or not, I wouldn't hold my breath on this."

"I'm not," she said as he hailed the _NEMESIS _with the standard distress signal, the same kind Starscream had used to contact Ratchet. He let Nightstalker up at the computer, and after a brief hiatus, the video feed played Knockout's cinched brows.

"Hello—"

His words died immediately, and Nightstalker could swear he blanched. "Hello, Knockout," she said evenly.

His throat worked visibly. "Ah, um, I—I'm not really supposed to be—"

"Listen," Nightstalker cut in. He uncomfortable stuttering stopped. "My brother is alive."

Knockout's optics popped. "Wait—you mean that little seeker that fought Megatron—"

"Yes," she interrupted again. "That was him. I guess you know what happened to him, right?"

His lips pressed. "Nightstalker, I'm not supposed to be talking to Autobots—"

"You're talking to your sister," she needled him. He winced at the reminder, but Nightstalker didn't feel the walls he had erected between them come down. "Look, we need your help."

He frowned and crossed his arms, trying to act haughty. "Oh really? MY help? Why would a Decepticon help an Autobot?"

"Because you're my brother." He flinched again. Nightstalker sighed softly, letting her shoulders slump. She let go of her acerbic tone. "Look, Knockout, Nightflier's wings were torn off. Ratchet's a great medic, but he hasn't had the experience with seekers like you have."

He gave a soft scoff. "And what do you expect me to do about that?"

Nightstalker took a deep breath, and she looked him in his optics. "I was hoping you could help reattach his wings."

Knockout gave one harsh, barking laugh. "Reattach seeker wings? You can't reattach their wings once they're ripped off! Sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help you there. The mech's grounded."

"What are you talking about?" Ratchet frowned, coming up behind Nightstalker so he could see him. "He's had a wing reattached before. I saw the evidence. I heard his confession."

It was Knockout's turn to scowl. "What are YOU talking about? No one's reattached seeker wings before! It's impossible!"

"First Aid did it."

The simple acclimation shut the vain Decepticon CMO up. He blinked in shock. "You guys are serious."

Nightstalker nodded. "We wouldn't have called if we weren't."

She watched his brows pucker in thought as his processor clearly began to percolate rapidly. That soft, deep "hmm" came from his vocalizer as he debated this and his mind tried to figure out how in the world First Aid could have done it. "Regardless," he finally said quieter. "I don't know how to reattach seeker wings. So you're out of luck anyways."

"Then at least tell us how to treat him," Nightstalker persisted, biting her bottom lip. "Do you know how we can stop his bleeding?"

"Well, a weld could always work, though that way is a very painful proced—I—Oh what am I even saying!" He interrupted his words with a frown. "What makes you think I can just give you helpful information like that? If Soundwave picks up on this conversation I'm a dead mech! My loyalties are still to the Decepticons, Nightstalker, and I can't help you guys without compromising my position even more!"

"Well you're on the wrong side!" Nightstalker snapped before she could stop herself. Knockout reeled back as if she had slapped him. "Regardless," she mocked him, "you can cough up some information to help make his recovery comfortable after what you did to me."

His gaze finally shuttered, but his throat worked. Guilty. "Look, you weren't supposed to—"

"What, you're trying to blame that betrayal on ME?" she cut in sharply. He recoiled again, shocked by her sudden confidence to stand up for herself. "That's just rich, Knockout. I knew you were pretty low, but I didn't think you were this bad."

"Well maybe I'm just not cut out for that kind of thing," he hissed back. "You need to keep the bond on the down low—if Soundwave hacks into this conversation—"

"Yeah, you're paint's scrapped," she cut in snarkily, half wanting to hate him and half wanting him back so badly. His ignoring her hurt. Blocking her out hurt. "Because that's all you've ever cared for is yourself, right?"

His optics flared white-hot. "You think I only care about myself?" he snapped. "It's because I cared about others that I got hurt! You think I saved your sorry sparkling life because I cared about myself? I cared about YOU when I did that, you ungrateful glitch!"

"I'm not ungrateful," she sneered, "I'm just not the one who turned his back on me when I needed him the most!"

"You think I wanted to endure whatever the scrap you were at that moment?" he exploded. "I never wanted any part of your pain and you suddenly tried to trust it all on me—"

"Do you even know what the Pit happened to me?"

Though his face was twisted up in a leer, he slowly stopped. "You don't know, do you?" she muttered tightly. "Megatron didn't tell you? Didn't gloat to anyone? I'm surprised. His ego's inflated enough to take pride in what he did."

Knockout's brow darkened. "What are you talking about?"

"You want to know what he did to me?" Nightstalker glared, and she leaned in close to the screen to whisper, so quietly she almost didn't hear herself, "He RAPED me."

She watched his gaze shutter. He blinked blankly back at her. "He what?"

"He raped me!" she hissed quietly, as if someone else would hear. "Within an inch of my life! And you turned your back on me! Right when I needed you the most!"

He was stunned. She could see the cold shock of it pouring across his circuits, the look on his face. He swallowed, and his throat bobbed hard. Nightstalker glared.

"So when I fragging ask for a little help to soothe my brother's pain, you had best chock it up because you owe me after that stunt."

Finally, Knockout dropped his head. After a quiet moment, he finally uttered, "I can't." It was on the tip of her glossia to lash out at him, but he jerked his head towards off screen. "Soundwave's dropped by for a visit." A cold chill settled in her stomach. "Besides, if I'm not mistaken, you're the one that owed me for saving your life back on Kaon." He gave one little shrug of his shoulder. "So let's just call it even and forget all about this bond thing. You don't owe me for Kaon—I don't owe you for that. Besides, it's not like any of my knowledge would have actually made a difference for your brother. Now, I've got some music to face here and a joyful interrogation with Megatron." He paused. His helm dipped, and he looked away, unable to look her in her optics. "I'm sorry."

The link cut dead. Dread curled in Nightstalker's stomach. Barely a second or two after the link cut dead, Ultra Magnus's sharp tone carried across the base.

"Was that unauthorized contact with the Decept—"

Ratchet held up his hand, silencing the commander. He took Nightstalker's shoulder as they waited in foreboding terror. "Nightstalker . . ."

She waited. She was half aware of grabbing Ratchet's hand, but it never happened. He didn't sever the bond. Slowly, her wings began to flutter. He wasn't going to sever the bond? He had spoken with such finality. She had been so certain . . .

She released a tight vent, and her wings drooped with relief. "He's not severing it," she whispered to him.

There was an audible vent of relief from Ratchet. He squeezed her shoulder with reassurance before straightening to face Ultra Magnus. "No, it was not unauthorized contact, I sanctioned the contact per Nightstalker's suggestion. We thought perhaps Knockout could be of use as a Decepticon medic with his experience with seekers and Nightfall's perplexing condition."

Ultra Magnus arched one brow. Military second in command was different from the science and medical side of second in command. "And how were you going to manage to twist the Decepticon's arm to help us?"

"He's my brother," Nightstalker stated flatly to him. "My half brother, that is. I had heavy blackmail and guilt against him, but he managed to pull up a debt I owed him. So whatever information we might have gathered to help us was lost in that nullification."

The commander blinked once down at her. Finally, he inquired, "What is your rank?"

Nightstalker blinked. "I, uh . . . What?"

"Your rank," he repeated, placing his servos on his hips. "It has puzzled me from the moment I met you. You speak and order as if you are of higher rank, yet you come to Ratchet to sanction your idea to contact the Decepticons for help. On top of that, you are the Prime's sister. What rank does that make you?"

A slow blush colored her cheeks. "I, um . . . I don't know. Uh—! Sir!" When he just arched a brow, impatiently waiting for an explanation, Nightstalker finally mustered up, "I don't think I really have a rank. As a Decepticon I was the lead torturer, but with the Autobots, I don't know. Medical skills are not my forte, neither is battle, neither is science, neither is engineering or . . ." and she felt her shoulders slump and her wings droop, "anything other than torture, really. So I'm basically without rank, I guess even lower than Smokescreen who's just the rookie . . . I don't have any skills other than torture, though I'm slowly getting better at fighting."

She paused, looking up at the permanently frowning commander. "As for what being the Prime's sister has to do anything with . . . I don't know. I don't think you should treat me any different because of it."

"Proper etiquette calls for it," Ultra Magnus said.

Nightstalker shrugged. "I don't know, sir. I'm good for quick scouting, not much more yet. And—besides, the concept of ranks is a bit weird for us. We don't really have ranks anymore. We've functioned as such a small group for so long that we just learned to do what needed done and just report to Optimus. Um . . . Yeah," she finished rather lamely, feeling like she had swallowed a flaming rock for bringing up Optimus's name. Agent Fowler was planning a burial for him. Someplace in the Rocky Mountains, far enough from most humans but still majestic. Nightflier had been stressing on what he could possibly say to bolster their courage.

As if by the mere thought, Ratchet looked up immediately. "Where's Nightfall?"

It took them a moment to realize he wasn't there. Ratchet mildly swore under his breath. "I told him not to go far!"

"He was walking around outside when I came in," Nightstalker supplied helpfully.

Ultra Magnus frowned. "I'll find him."

* * *

><p>Ultra Magnus was speaking to him.<p>

He just couldn't . . . focus.

His optics kept darting over to his father. He knew Ultra Magnus was chewing him out for his apparent disregard of protocol, and yes, perhaps he shouldn't have, but he couldn't help but feel it was a good thing. Those humans needed to know who their allies were. He needed to know exactly who he was fighting for, who he was fighting with, who he was striving to protect. Maybe the world didn't need to know, but their military allies? He wanted them to know. He wanted to keep them as his friends.

But for some reason, he felt sick. Just the sight of his father brooding silently on the berth, forgotten and ostracized by the Autobots. What in the world was he thinking about? It was driving him absolutely mad. Was he thinking about dying? Was he plotting? Was he wallowing in self-pity? Was he trying to think of how to get him back? He just . . . brooded. It unnerved him. Penny for his thoughts—more like riches of untold belief just to find out one little bit of what he was thinking. Perhaps he would never know.

"Nightfall. Nightfall—Nightflier!"

He suddenly snapped out of his stupor, looking guiltily back to Ultra Magnus. He flushed hotly in embarrassment. "I'm sorry," he blurted before he could stop himself. "I just—I'm listening."

Ultra Magnus paused. "Nightfall, it would do you good to take my advice to spark," he stated. "I am hard on you because the Decepticons will be harder, and Megatron, merciless."

Against his will, his optics kept cutting to his father. That sickening feeling rose. It consumed him—guilt. It burned him up.

"Nightfall, are you listening?"

"Yes!" he blurted quickly, even though it was clear he hadn't been. He looked up to Ultra Magnus again, feeling like a child again. "I, uh—" He shuffled his peds unconsciously, and he felt his will thin and break. "I'm sorry, I—I need to—"

He couldn't quite finish his sentence. He hurried across the base to the medical area, spark sputtering in his chest. He had never been good at hiding grudges anyways. And was what he was doing to his father any different than what Nightstalker was doing to him?

Dreadwing looked up when he threw himself down on his knees, arms hugging around himself. "I'm sorry," he burst. His throat worked as he tried to keep a lid on the tears that too often came anymore. "I'm sorry, just please, please, stop ignoring me. I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything I said, please, I just . . . I want my Dad."

His voice broke. Hands reached down, and relief poured through him when Dreadwing merely scooped him up close. Nightflier grabbed him, having had enough of the hurt, the misery, and the pain they put each other through. He didn't care what it meant anymore—just as long as he could fix his family.

His arms wrapped around him, gentle with the reality of his wounds, understanding of the silk sheet that covered up the shame of being grounded. "You're mother was always right," he murmured softly, deep voice vibrating with comfort. "She always told me to have patience with you."

Nightflier began to cry. He reached up around his neck, cuddling close to his father after millennia of being apart, crying like the lost child he was. He wanted his father. He wanted his approval. He wanted him to be proud, but there was nothing to be proud of when he was so broken like this.

Still, yet still his spark chamber opened to him. After brief hesitation, halting with shuddering sobs, Nightflier returned the gesture, bearing himself to his father to fix the broken bond. Begging. Desperate for his comfort.

The second their spark chambers opened, Ratchet shooed the others from the room. Petty thoughts of finishing logging their energon scouting irked him—he tried to quietly shove them away, poking and prodding at Bulkhead and the others as they returned and tried to get in. He left them alone, letting them have their privacy as Nightflier wept with relief and joy and love, the deep voice of his father soothing him and filling him with strength.

However, his optics couldn't help but linger on Nightstalker's hopelessly wistful gaze when she reluctantly left. His spark pained. He wanted so much to change her mind . . . But medic or father's intuition, he knew there was no way he could. She would have to make that decision herself, to let her brother in. She just needed to understand one day about the reality of unconditional love.

Leaving the father and son inside to reunite in private, Ratchet caught Nightstalker before she could slip away. He held her, knowing she was going to be crying.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**I named this chapter after the most important line(s) of the chapter. Though we can see Nightflier's for what it means, it's Knockout's that intrigues me the most. Just what IS he sorry about? That he betrayed her? That she was raped? That he couldn't do anything more? All of that? None of it? The fact that he really IS just thinking about himself?**

**Knockout's sorry intrigued me the most. Just think about that one.**


	59. Small Things

**Author's Note:**

**I have mixed feelings about this chapter. But everything that happened between Magnus and Fli-Ni was perfect. So.**

**Oh! And I just realized that Fraternizing just passed 300 reviews! That's awesome guys! Thank you so much for reviewing! :)**

* * *

><p>Nightflier plopped his aft down on a medical berth, dropping his face into his servos and claws digging so tightly into his helm that he nearly cut lines through his paint.<p>

_I'm a failure. One Primus-slagged thing, Nightflier, and you couldn't even do that! Cybertron below me—!_

Maybe it was because he didn't know him that well. Didn't know him at all. That had to account for something. Or maybe the fact that he didn't know what he was fighting for anymore. Cybertron was dead, and it wasn't coming back. The Forge—what could he do with the Forge? It was too large for him to even lift, he didn't have the skill needed to re-forge the Omega Lock, much less the Omega Keys.

He had considered using its power to fix his wings. But he didn't. Because he couldn't go against Optimus's last wish.

But his wings weren't the problem right now. Neither was the Forge, or the Omega Lock, or even Cybertron. It was him. Him and his failure. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The silence in the room killed him. He was supposed to have done more than that. Each bot quietly assumed his or her own respective position in the room, spaced out, as if they could hear each other's thoughts by being too close. June was talking quietly with Jack, the boy sullen, hurt, cut open even at losing the closest one he'd had to a father. Miko sat quietly on Bulkhead's shoulder. Bumblebee and Raf cried softly with each other. Nightstalker was in the ceiling again. Cliffjumper brooded alone, though he looked up at her. Smokescreen curled up alone. Ratchet immersed himself in his work. Ultra Magnus did too. Arcee met no one's optics.

And Nightflier cursed himself. To the Pit and back. With a stunning fluency. Colorful and creative. He had never hated himself so much in his life.

_One Primus-blessed thing, and you couldn't even manage that._

He couldn't even comfort himself with the fact that he had spoken. He knew, as Prime, he was supposed to lead the late Optimus Prime's burial. He had to speak. And so he had spent the days before in which he knew he was supposed to speak by trying to form a speech. It had been a rather weak speech. He didn't know the mech—didn't know his experiences or sacrifices first hand—but he was a Prime, and so nothing but the grandest could be spared for him.

So he had come up with a small speech. Nothing grandiose, perhaps a bit lacking in emotion. He grieved, yes, but not like the others. He didn't know the mech. Maybe he resented him slightly for making him Prime. But he had still tried his best to create a worthy speech, however unworthy it was. And what did he say?

_I don't know what to say._

And so Ultra Magnus had prodded him to say something. It didn't matter what. Speak from his spark, and the words would come.

Several minutes of awkward, stretching silence.

_I have nothing to say._

Nothing. His spark had been empty. The words had never come. He kept his face bowed in shame, despising himself for being unable to offer the least of any condolences as Ultra Magnus took over the procession. He couldn't say anything. Nothing. Just empty. Vacant. Destitute. Hollow.

_I have nothing to say._

So he cursed himself to the Pit and back. Such a simple thing to do, funeral rites. He could have used a standard, cut and dry version and it would have been better than nothing. Pit, he could have even utilized the human's worldwide network and stolen a grand speech. But what did he say?

_Nothing._

_ Nothing._

_ Nothing._

_ I had nothing to say._

_ Nothing in my spark._

_ Just nothing._

_ Maybe I am nothing._

Tender, large hands took his shoulders. The vibrating timbre of his father's voice rumbled quietly in his audios.

"Nightflier . . ."

He gently twisted his shoulders out of his grip. "I want to be left alone," he whispered hoarsely.

There was a pause. Then, he felt a tender push against his spark, a nudge to be let in, to help him bear his misery. A supportive shoulder. Someone to lean on. But he had been without his father for so long, raw wounds would still irritate. They still didn't heal correctly. And he found himself pushing him away, just wanting to lock himself up in the darkness of all his failings. So Dreadwing allowed him his space.

Amazing how he could go from such a promising young lad, energetic, the bright spot in his friends' lives, the one they all looked to for bolstered courage, an extra smile to help through all the hard times, and a laugh that could warm the coldest of sparks. And now? He was reduced to a self-conscious, blubbering mess, so concentrated on his own woes that he couldn't even soothe another's.

The social butterfly? His wings had been clipped. There was no way for a bird to survive without its wings. In captivity, yes. Like now. Captive in this base, provided a means of living, but was it worth living? For his father, yes. The first pure, unadulterated joy he had ever felt in so long. For his sister? Yes. Even if she rejected him.

It always came back to that. He had to hold on to the thought of his family to make it. And First Aid. By Primus, how he missed First Aid. He wanted him to come back and heal him. He wanted him to hold him, comfort him with that so soothing way he had, so compassionate it hurt. He wanted to link with him again and let him feel everything he felt so raw, let it pour into him with an immediate link and connect their sparks again. He wanted it how it had been when they had first bonded.

No, not the first time. The time he had so angrily rejected First Aid's help and love. A half bond, if you will. Inadvertently linked to the mech, but emotional conversation and sparkial communication nearly blocked. Just a crutch to keep him going. But he'd never forget the peace he gained when he had finally let him in . . .

_ His chest felt so tight it sunk like a poisonous lead weight into his spark. He trembled so hard his servos shook, so hard he almost couldn't see straight, jaw clenched so bad his mouth cramped._

_ Pure despair. It sank its heathenish claws into his spark and threatened to drag him beyond the yawning maw of oblivion, into a place he would never surface from and, indeed, never WANT to surface from. It terrified and beckoned him both, and he shuddered, an endless stream of tears cutting their way down his cheeks._

_ The automatic door hissed open. A soft voice followed. "Nightflier?"_

_ A sob. The sound punctuated through the pounding silence and filled the medic's spark with compassion. Quiet footsteps brought the red and white to his side, and First Aid lied down next to him and bundled his shivering form close._

_ "Easy," he murmured tenderly, kneading the sensitive spot between his wings to soothe his anxieties. "I love you. My little, silly sparkling of a brother, I love you dearly . . ."_

_ Somehow, that only made it worse. Nightflier's weeping became pronounced, breaking and halting with passions as First Aid affectionately opened their chest plating and connected the wires required for a fraternal bond. Sparks merged together. One devastated spark soaked up the reassurance, the sympathy, the heartfelt grief with every ounce of desperation he suffered._

_ "It's all right," First Aid whispered, stroking his twitching wings. "It's all right. Shh, I'm here, I promise. I love you, my dear sweetspark . . . shh . . ."_

_ Choked up emotion pulsed through the newly acclimated bond._

Through all the hard times in his life . . . those nights kept him alive.

"Nightfall?"

Nightflier jerked, looking up with wide optics at the intruder. "A-Arcee," he stuttered. Out of everyone, he hadn't expected her. "I—I ah . . . just want to . . ." To be alone, right? That was why he had asked his father for some space. So why wasn't he asking that of her?

She shifted. "May I sit?"

"Uh, sure."

No! No, he didn't want her there. Did he? But when she sank down next to him, the tenseness of his back was soothed a little, and he relaxed his shoulders a little, finding comfort in her presence. She always managed to have that effect on him. A sort of electrical magnetism that prickled his protoform every time he was around her. Yet still as peaceful as a river.

"It's all right."

"No it's not," he muttered back. "Arcee, it was simple enough what was asked of me. I could have said anything. I should have said SOMETHING."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," she said softly. If they had been there, his wings would have twitched. He averted his face when she looked at him. "You didn't know him. How can you possibly prepare a speech on someone you know so little of? Besides, you're injured. It's too soon of us to ask anything of you."

"That's not how it works," he said with a scowl. "I'm the Prime. I have to be ready for all of this. Everything. It doesn't matter if I'm hurt or not. And that—that didn't require physical strength anyways!" His hands tightened on the edge of the berth. "Frag me flying—I just don't know anymore, Arcee. I knew my place in the world! I wasn't supposed to be Prime, I wasn't . . . This was such a big mistake. I'm no Prime. He made the wrong choice."

Her optics darkened in worry. Daring, she reached out to touch his hand. "Nightfall, do you really think Primus would pick the wrong mech? He chose you for a reason."

Before he could stop it, a sarcastic laugh fell out of his mouth. "Oh, and what reason was that? To ground me?"

"No." He lifted his bitter gaze to her. "I don't know why he chose you, but you're more than what you've let yourself become," and she gestured a little towards him.

He scowled. "Not by choice." His servo gripped a handful of the satin bed sheet that covered up his shame. "I'm no Prime. I can't do this."

She vented a moment in frustration. "And how can you know that if you haven't even tried?" Nightflier's helm jerked up. His optics widened too, shocked with a sudden slap of truth. Arcee nodded, optics blazing with that passion he was so used to seeing. "You're holding back. You're hiding. You ARE a Prime, Nightfall."

He shook his head, staring in confused amazement. "How . . . How can you believe that?" he asked a little bit haggardly, wanting so much to have that same assurance as she did.

"It's not what I believe, it's what I know." When Nightflier could only feel just as conflicted as before, she continued softer, "Nightflier, I SAW you take on Starscream in the Apex Armor. I SAW the bloody remains of all of those Vehicon troopers when you protected that town. And I saw that look in your optics. That empathy and determination in your voice."

Nightflier swallowed suddenly, sucked into her purple-rimmed optics. "Nightfall. I know you have it in you. I don't know why you won't be the Prime I know you are, the Prime I see inside. But how you stand and what you do can make all the difference."

His throat tightened at her belief in him. He looked back down, rasping, "Arcee . . ."

"Stop that."

He looked up in confusion. "Stop what?"

"Sit up straight." When he just stared, not understanding, she huffed and took matters into her own hands. Moving closer, she touched beneath his chin, repeating, "Sit up straight," and Nightflier immediately sat up at her gesture. "Shoulders back," and she gently prodded at each shoulder. Nightflier pulled them back, and it brought his chest up. "Chin up," and she chucked beneath his chin when he had looked back down at her. "Stop being so weak with your optics. Show me that determination. When you fought Starscream."

She eyed him critically as the lost and self-conscious look finally left his optics as he brought himself back to that empowering moment full of nothing but grit. Finally, she softened at the sight of him, saying, "That's how you need to hold yourself."

After a moment, Nightflier looked back down at her. "That's it?" he asked her softly. Something so trivial like his posture said so much?

She nodded, face right there in front of his. "That's it."

His throat worked again. His mouth parted, and he didn't even realize he had leaned towards her until her optics flickered uncertainly. Shocked at himself, he pulled away, stammering, "S-Sorry. I'm sorry, that was so forward." Primus, he barely knew the femme!

There was a pause. Finally, she admitted softly, "I can't deny the attraction . . . Pit, what am I saying, it's more like magnetism."

Nightflier nodded in agreement, stating, "Captivation."

"Yes, but . . . I'm . . . struggling." Nightflier frowned in worry at the pinch in her brows as she looked down. "I've gotten out of two relationships. Rather badly." She stopped, gathering her bearings before she laid it out flat. "The first died, and the other was Cliffjumper."

Nightflier gaped for a full second before he schooled his expression. "O-Oh."

Arcee nodded, hands fiddling in her lap. "Yes. But . . . I had them both. I did. Hooker line and sinker. But they both slipped by my fingers because I was . . . afraid. I didn't want to commit. I wasn't ready. I kept telling myself I wasn't ready until Tailgate died and Nightstalker came and stole Cliffjumper's spark." She paused again before she faced him fully.

"So I'm at an impasse. I don't want to get back into a relationship after all of that, but I'm so afraid that if I don't act on it this time I'll lose it." She blinked those beautiful optics at him. "Do you understand?"

For a minute, Nightflier let it all sink in before he lifted his hands with a small tug of his lips. "Now, I don't know about all this relationship business," he teased a little. "We really don't know each other yet. So don't stress this, really. So we've both admitted there's something there, and we can take it baby steps at a time."

"You don't understand," Arcee interrupted him. One of his brows rose before she said flatly, "I don't want to take baby steps."

He gaped again. He snapped his jaw shut at HER forwardness, struggling to comprehend how starkly frank she was. A relationship? "I—I, uh—"

"I've taken it too careful with both of my past relationships," Arcee again cut in, "so this time I just want to throw aside all the reservations that held me back with the past two, but I know that's not fair to ask that of you. You barely know me, and I barely know you, so I can't judge what you think or feel. And I'd feel strange because I'd feel like I was taking advantage of you with how little you know about femmes."

His jaw gaped. "What?"

Finally, her lips curved into a devious smile. "Oh please. You stutter way too much around me. You might as well have 'virgin' slapped right across your forehead."

Finally, a heated blush seared Nightflier's cheeks. "I—I'm not a virgin!" Never mind that he was so overcharged both times that he didn't remember either. Or why he had to clarify that in the first place. Maybe it was some sort of misplaced mech pride.

She laughed a moment more at his expense before they fell silent again on their end of the base. After several more moments, Nightflier finally cleared his throat and rumbled, "Well, uh . . . Then, let's do it." She looked up sharply. He shrugged, that carefree side of him taking over with a little grin as he admitted, "Slot, why not? What happens, happens—and if for some reason I think you're taking it too fast, I'll tell you. All right?"

Arcee stared at him for a full beat before she managed, "You are so different from Nightstalker. She and Cliffjumper had to CRAWL into their relationship with a kick in the aft from me to finally get them to do something about their feelings." Her breaking it off from Cliffjumper had been the real reason Cliffjumper had even shown his interest anyways, and that had been WAY after he had fallen for her. And even after that things proceeded extremely slowly. "And you just want to fall into this without reservations? I mean, this could really just be a big setup for heartbreak and we'll both regret it."

He shrugged again, flashing a bit of teeth at her. "If it wasn't going to work, then it doesn't matter if we took it slow or fast, there'd still be heartbreak at the end. So why in Pit not?"

She looked at him for a full klik more before her lips twisted up wryly. "Nightflier? Thanks."

He tried not to shrug again since the gesture kept sending prickles of pain chasing down his back. "You're welcome." He paused again. "Arcee?" he asked softly. "Do you really think I could be a good Prime?"

She nudged him. "You've got to try first."

He nudged her back. "I guess I can do that."

She gave him a light shrug. "Good."

Nightflier's lips twisted up into the semblance of a smile, and he vented to himself softly. Be a Prime. He didn't know the first thing about being a commander, much less a Prime. He stopped. His shoulders were hunching again. Consciously, Nightflier forced himself to square his shoulders. Losing his wings and suddenly becoming Prime wasn't the end of the world.

_Though it certainly is close._

Standing to his peds, Nightflier walked across the base to where the Forge of Solus Prime rested against the wall. Optimus's last and final wish was that he restore the Omega Lock with the Forge. Standing before the mighty hammer much larger than himself, Nightflier reached out and touched its golden sheen.

The hammer sparked to life, whirring with the touch of a Prime, activating its power. Nightflier's fingers tingled, and he was half aware of the gazes turning his way, but he ignored them, reaching out into the depths of the Forge. He was appalled by what he found. The tiny pool of power . . . That wasn't enough to restore the Omega Lock. Much less the Keys. Primus, he didn't even think was enough power to restore his wings!

Solid footsteps sounded behind him. "Nightfall?"

He pressed his lips together. He jumped up on the Forge, gesturing. "It's bigger than me," he told Ultra Magnus.

The commander's brow lifted at his matter-of-fact tone. After a pause, he finally ventured, "I gather, but I don't follow."

Nightflier gave a vague shrug. "Everything's bigger than me. The Forge, Megatron, being Prime, the loss of my wings, everything I'm supposed to live up to. It's all bigger than me. I'm just a little guy." He grasped the handle of the Forge, frowning. "So why am I Prime?"

"Optimus chose you."

Nightflier shook his head. "No. Optimus chose Smokescreen. So why am I Prime?"

Ultra Magnus's optics widened. He cast a fleeting glance to Smokescreen before his gaze settled on Nightflier. His brows pinched again as he considered the small mech before him, and finally, he said, "You were chosen because Primus saw something within you."

His jaw opened with a retort and he stopped. "Good answer," he muttered begrudgingly. He looked back up to the commander. "You know what happened up there on Darkmount?"

He frowned. "You disabled the power core of Darkmount, providing our forces with the opportunity to strike down Megatron's fortress at the price of losing your wings."

"Wrong." Nightflier shook his head, and his shoulders slumped again before he could stop it. "I didn't disable the power core. Megatron did—on accident. I was a cripple before this too, you know?" He frowned. "Slot, he just grabbed my brace and tried to throw me in our battle. Which was more like a game of chicken. The brace snapped, and I went flying into the power core. That's it. Then Megatron proceeded to rip off my wings."

At that, Ultra Magnus had nothing to say. Nightflier shrugged and again tried to keep his shoulders erect. "I'm just saying, I haven't done anything right as Prime yet. And I can't even be an asset in the field anymore because my wings are gone. I'm a cripple, and that handicaps everything good about me. Like this, all I can use is my processor, and I know nothing of being a leader."

Ultra Magnus nodded firmly. "I understand. But you must trust me to teach you."

It was Nightflier's turn to nod. "Yes, I know." He stopped. "Optimus said to use the power of the Forge to repair the Omega Lock," Nightflier said suddenly. "But it's practically depleted of all energy. I don't even think I could fix my own wings with the meager power left. So what am I supposed to do with it?"

Ultra Magnus's optics dropped to the hammer whirring beneath his Prime's touch. "I don't know," he finally said after a long moment.

Nightflier shook his head. "Guess it's only useful to pound out dings . . ." He dropped his helm. He was surprised that Ultra Magnus hadn't forced them back into the motions yet. He supposed it was out of reverence for Optimus, but . . . It was time they began again. They had had the past days to grieve for their Prime. But the Decepticons wouldn't be grieving. Yes, recuperating after losing Darkmount, but they wouldn't stop. Megatron was aggressive. He bet they had their next plan in motion already, and they, the Autobots, had done nothing.

Nightflier looked up to Ultra Magnus. "What's the current state of our energon reserves?"

"Dire," was the commander's response. "According to Ratchet, if no grave wounds are taken, we may have enough to just keep us running for a week."

Nightflier closed his optics. "So we need to start scouting for energon immediately."

"That would be advised."

When Nightflier sighed under the weight of the pressure, Ultra Magnus stated, "I've already taken liberties to set out the standard routes to scout. You won't have to worry about that. It will be routine. With your permission, I will take another and myself back to the remains of the old base to search for what provisions we may find left behind by the Decepticons."

Nightflier didn't buy it. He knew the Decepticons would have picked the place clean, but he just nodded. "Thanks." Then, he paused. Stepping of the Forge, the relic whirred to a stop, and Nightflier stepped out self-consciously, clearing his throat. "Um . . . Guys."

He knew that wasn't really the proper way to call them. But he'd feel weird if he called them anything like his soldiers or what. Instead, as optics turned to him, he cleared his throat nervously again, shuffling his peds. "Um, well . . . I want to say I'm sorry. I . . . haven't put up a good effort to be your Prime. And, I know even if I don't really want to be, I have to. So just bear with me as I try to figure this out."

He wet his lips, optics jumping as he tried to keep optic contact with a few, but he didn't have that kind of bearings yet. Instead, his gaze kept slipping downwards. "And . . . I know you guys are hurting now that Optimus is gone. I can't pretend to know what it's like since I didn't know him the way you all did, but can imagine. This group—You don't function that much differently than my Protectobots back on Cybertron. Less of a war faction and more with the bonds that have grown." Nightflier paused, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. He shrugged nervously, satin bed sheet moving with the motion.

"I'm trusting you all to lean on each other for comfort, but we can't dally any longer. Energon reserves are low, and if we don't get back to scouting, we'll all offline with him, and I know Optimus would never approve of it. And I know he'd never approve of us giving up just because he was gone. He wouldn't want us to give in to the Decepticons, so we won't." He looked up again, trying his best to keep optic contact. "I'm probably going to be learning more from you all about how to be a leader than I could figure out on my own. I know I have a lot to live up to, and I'll never be Optimus, but . . ." and he looked up to Smokescreen. "I don't have to be Optimus. And, I know it's unfair of me to ask, but I'm asking you to put your faith in me as Optimus's successor."

There was silence after his spill, and Nightflier shuffled his peds again, pain throbbing up his back already this early in the day. He knew it was no grand speech. But he just had to get what he needed to say off his chest and out for the others to hear. After a minute, he finally heard a quiet,

"Well said."

Nightflier's optics flicked up to Ratchet. The medic nodded in trust, and Nightflier swallowed before nodding back. A quiet, general consensus rippled across the room, and Nightflier almost let his shoulders slump in relief, but he caught Arcee's optics. Instinctively, he fixed his posture even more.

After a moment, he realized that Ultra Magnus was keeping quiet so he could give the orders. Swallowing, Nightflier gave a small gesture. "We need to get scouting for energon. There are already routes in the computer ready to be scouted, take your pick and divvy up. Ultra Magnus," and his optics managed to brush Wheeljack, "and Wheeljack, have Ratchet bridge you out to the old base and try to salvage anything you can."

With his words, he felt a brush of pride against his spark. His spark filled to bursting with love and happiness to know he was linked with his father again, faults forgiven and things starting fresh. He looked up, surprised to see Dreadwing walking across the room towards him. His optics bulged from his head when his father knelt at his peds, a hand over his spark.

"Optimus Prime asked me numerous times to forsake the Decepticon cause and join the Autobots," Dreadwing said aloud, publicly, so the others could hear. "I renounced him on both counts. I claimed betraying my kind was not the same as joining his." Dreadwing paused, and Nightflier felt his regret brush against him. He reached out, soothing his father's remorse. "Now, I ask you to allow me to defect to Autobot so that I may protect the ones I care about most and once again restore my honor."

"Done," Nightflier said before Ultra Magus could say anything, as if he was afraid the commander would not let him defect for some reason. Nightflier's lips twitched as he tried and failed to hold back a smile. "Guess you'll have to let Ratchet change your faction symbol and get some blue optics." He looked towards Ratchet for confirmation, and the medic just nodded. Dreadwing inclined his body respectfully to his Prime before heading off towards the medical area.

With his movement moved the rest of the Autobots. They began to disperse to do his bidding, and Nightflier caught sight of his sister amongst them. Licking his lips nervously and shuffling his peds, he called out, "Nights, come here!"

He watched her look up to Bumblebee before the scout patted her arm with an uplifting chirp. She made her way nervously over to him, and his lips twitched up again. He stretched his arms out. "Come here."

He enveloped her in a big hug, sighing as he came into contact with her. Yes, she was alive. He couldn't help how he tried to feel her in his spark, but it felt good to know she was alive. "All right, look at me." He pulled back, tilting her chin up when she wanted to look at the floor.

"It's all right, Nights." He let his lips curve into a smile as he said the hardest words he had ever had to say before in his life. "We don't have to bond yet."

She frowned, looking her optics away as she muttered, "But . . ."

"Nights, look at me." Reluctantly, she lifted her helm to look at him. He vented slowly. "I talked with Arcee and Jack a while before. They mentioned something really bad had happened to you, but didn't explain what. And . . . I'm guessing whatever it is is the reason you don't want to bond?" Again, shamefully, she nodded her head. Nightflier sighed, covering up his hurt. He looked her in her optics. "Look. I'm not going to force you into anything you don't want to do, but . . . I do want you to know that nothing can be so bad that I'd let it stand in between us, got it?"

She teared up a moment before blinking her optics rapidly and rasping, "Got it."

Hugging her tightly again, Nightflier pressed an affectionate kiss to the side of her helm. As an afterthought, he whispered, "Take this scouting flight for me, Nights. Primus knows I need one . . ."

She squeezed lightly back, mindful of his wounds, and hushed back, "Okay."

Nightflier let her go with a mild vent as he watched them—his warriors—disperse. Yes, it was good he was finally doing what he was supposed to. But that didn't mean it felt normal. It felt utterly at odds with his personality. He didn't like it. But he would do it, because he had to.

As Ratchet bridged Ultra Magnus and Wheeljack out, the commander paused, looking back at Nightflier. Nightflier blinked, and he came back towards him. After a moment, he knelt.

"Nightfall." Ultra Magnus's brows frowned as he studied Nightflier, and Nightflier shifted uncertainly at his studious gaze. Finally, Ultra Magnus stated, "I know why you are Prime."

Nightflier's optics snapped open wide. "Y-You do?"

Ultra Magnus nodded. "It is simple. Though you are small, and you say that the Forge is bigger than you; Megatron is bigger than you; everything is bigger than you. I find that perhaps your size is daunting, because while you are small, you contain something bigger inside, something powerful that has yet to be discovered."

He looked up, brows cinched with confusion and hope. "And what's that?"

Ultra Magnus shook his head. "That, not even I could tell you. It is something you will have to discover on your own."

The commander rose, and Nightflier watched him go. Ratchet shut the bridge behind him, and Nightflier looked down at his peds.

He frowned in thought. At least things had gotten back into motion. He had taken his first step as a Prime—a tiny, baby step though it may be—and given his first orders. Hah. Go scout energon. Okay! Yup, great orders. But things always started small.

His lip curled ruefully. Small. He lifted his head, looking towards where the ground bridge would open. Despite everything, he still had Ultra Magnus's vote of confidence. He hadn't realized how much he had needed that gesture until the commander had done it. Though he was still intimidated by the position of Prime, he didn't feel so oppressed anymore.

_I don't know what the frag I'm doing. But at least I'm doing it._


	60. One Step Forward, One Step Back

**Author's Note:**

**I have a sort of love-hate relationship with this chapter. I think it's cause things are a little slower, more character development than action.**

**Oh, and there's a little bit of bad-touching at the end ^-^**

**Hm, this is a long chapter... usually I average around the 5000-6000 word mark, and this one's a whopping 8000...**

* * *

><p>"You call THIS not much else?"<p>

Nightflier blinked as Wheeljack suddenly chucked the lobbing ball across the room, and Bulkhead's hands came up too slow. The ball ricocheted loudly off his chassis and Miko squealed as Jack jerked her out of the way of the ball. It crashed into the wall, and Nightflier blinked owlishly before grinning with a tease on his mouth—

"Wheeljack! You could have caused serious damage!"

"To me!" Miko snapped.

Nightflier's jaw shut with a click. Oh.

Ultra Magnus stalked forward with a frown. "What were you thinking, soldier?"

Wheeljack shrugged. "I was thinking Bulk could catch that lob."

"Allow me to make myself clear," Ultra Magnus stated flatly, and Nightflier felt his brows rise at the confrontation, almost wide-eyed as he took in a superior chastising his subordinate. "As Nightfall Prime's second in command, I have no intention of tolerating Wrecker behavior!"

Nightflier stared even more. Wrecker behavior? That looked like just the sort of thing Hot Spot would do with the Protectobots, and he was the leader for crying out loud!

"Some things never change . . ." Wheeljack muttered.

Ultra Magnus stifled a growl behind pressed lips. "Need I remind you that it was Optimus Prime himself who assigned me to command your Wreckers back on Cybertron, and get you loose cannons UNDER CONTROL. An effective combat unit begins and ends with discipline. If you won't accept that, feel free to take the path of least resistance. As you did before."

Nightflier's jaw almost dropped. What? No no no, that was a bit . . . severe, and he wasn't going to let Wheeljack walk out just because Ultra Magnus came down on him like that.

However, Wheeljack's optics just flashed and his teeth gnashed. "If my ship wasn't a twisted wreck at present, I'd do that. SIR."

Nightflier moved out of the way with the rest of the bots as Wheeljack stormed away. He blinked at Magnus, and the commander just puffed a resigned sigh before settling his gaze on Nightflier. "So. Where is Dreadwing?"

Ah, the only one not in the room—barring Wheeljack. "He's investigating recent Decepticon activity," Nightflier told him. "Hopefully an energon mine. Now, ah, if you'll excuse me a moment . . ."

Dismissing himself—since he had the authority to—he basically had authority over almost everything—Nightflier made his way across the base to where Wheeljack was. "Hey."

He gave a half shrug. "Hey."

Nightflier shifted, practically feeling the bad vibes rolling from Wheeljack's shoulders. "Look. Try not to take that personally. The Protectobots I was a part of did practically the same sort of things like you did."

Wheeljack snorted and turned to face him, looking down. "Everything between me and Magnus IS personal. We go way back, kid."

Nightflier paused. "A little respect, please," he said to the easily agitated Wrecker. "I may be little, but I am in charge. I came over here to make a little peace in my ranks, not make things worse."

Wheeljack scowled, looking away from him. "It doesn't help anything that you've let that Dreadwing be a part of us . . ."

Feeling small next to the Wrecker, Nightflier arched a brow up at him. "That Dreadwing happens to be my father. Now, what's your problem with him?"

Wheeljack whirled back on him. "MY problem with him?" he growled. He flung an arm out. "He blasted my friend Seaspray into bits, and tried to kill Bulkhead and me too!"

Nightflier leaned away, taken aback at his vehemence. Slot. So there was a lot more undercurrents beneath the surface than he had initially thought. Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus didn't get along. Wheeljack had a vendetta against Dreadwing. Bulkhead probably held it against him too.

Pinching his brow, Nightflier finally said, "I can't repent my father's sins nor can I pretend he is sorry. But he is an Autobot now and not a Decepticon, and I expect you to treat him as such. If not, then I expect you to talk to him and settle this WITHOUT violence." He paused. "Slot, I don't mean to sound like Ultra Magnus, but Wheeljack, please. I want to keep things as peaceful as possible around here."

Wheeljack's lips curled up. "You expect me to forgive him?"

Nightflier shook his head. "If not, then at least settle this respectfully and put it behind you enough that you can work with him without grudges. All right?"

Wheeljack pressed his lips together, judging the smaller mech before him and what bearings he had before he nodded. "Right. I'll do that."

He detected a sense of mixed emotions from the Wrecker, but his word was going to have to do for now. Before he could go ask Bulkhead how he felt about it—realizing he was probably going to have to do this for ALL of the Autobots—a blue and yellow car came screaming in.

Arcee's brows lifted. "Smokescreen?"

He transformed up with a groan. "Aw, what gave me away?" A rueful smirk tipped Nightflier's lips when Arcee could only give him a look. "C'mon! Robots in disguise, right?"

His smile faded—again—when Ultra Magnus walked up. "Where have you been, soldier?"

"Scanning new war paint!" Smokescreen replied with a grin. "Thought it'd be proactive to follow Bumblebee's lead."

"Now you can look your best while stacking those empty cubes."

Nightflier winced a little at the statement. Ouch. Smokescreen's helm dipped as he said, "Yes, sir." He moved off to do his bidding.

Nightflier stifled a sigh. And again he was diffusing tensions. Brushing past Ultra Magnus who acted like he wanted to talk to him, Nightflier made his way over to Smokescreen. He looked up at him, and Nightflier grinned.

"Digging the paint job!"

The effect was instantaneous. Smokescreen grinned widely, bursting, "Thanks! I thought these colors might be pretty sick—" and then, when Nightflier bent down to help him stack the cubes, his optics widened. "W-Wait a minute! You're not supposed to—"

"To what?" Nightflier replied candidly. He picked up the first cube, feeling a twinge in his back as he did so. "Help out a friend?"

Smokescreen glanced quickly over his shoulder, looking back at Ultra Magnus before a hot blush overcame him. "You're PRIME," he whispered furiously back. "You're not supposed to do chores like this!"

"And who says I can't?"

"Your physician," and Nightflier nearly jumped out of his protoform when Ratchet was suddenly there, frowning with arms crossed. "You don't need to be putting that kind of strain on your back."

Nightflier quietly huffed a little and relented. "Yes, sir." He gave a small shrug to Smokescreen with a pinch of his face as he was forced to move on and leave his friend with the most mundane chores. Nightflier sighed in frustration to himself again.

If he was Prime, he couldn't view Smokescreen as his friend, could he? He was his soldier. He was supposed to treat him as such. But did that really mean he couldn't help him out like that or compliment him on his proud new colors? That was pretty stiff. Before he could think on it further, an incoming transmission with his father's voice lifted his head.

"Dreadwing requesting ground bridge back to base."

He didn't relax. He felt the worry in his father's spark. And that was culminated when he returned, not with energon, but the skull of a Predacon.

It helped explain the dragon Megatron had sent on them, but Ratchet and Ultra Magnus helped him theorize that Shockwave had cloned the beast from the CNA of the beast. But, for the life of them, they couldn't understand how the Predacon bones were found on Earth when they went extinct on Cybertron. To top it all off, the humans said that the Predacons looked like metal versions of their Greek mythology.

In short?

It didn't help his already strained consciousness. In fact, it only added to the stress that was heaping up on him. He excused himself quietly that evening, deciding to clean up. He hadn't had a good decontamination bath, and the solitude would do him some good. He needed time to think.

Heading outside and past hangar D—their collective berth room—and to hangar C on the end, Nightflier entered the showers and turned them on blasting hot. Dropping the satin sheet at the entrance, Nightflier stood beneath the spray, so consumed with his thoughts he bypassed actually scrubbing himself.

By Primus he wanted to fly. It was a slow, processor-consuming ache deep inside that he never really had to face until he was alone. Like now. He could usually keep his mind off of it—worry about other things, talk with someone, as long as he wasn't alone, he could bear it. And with the limited space, there was always someone near. But now that he was alone in these showers? He shivered beneath the hot spray of water, sucking in a tight vent—he wanted it. Primus he wanted to fly SO badly. He could almost feel the kiss of the wind on his face, the weightlessness of a fall before shooting back up into the air, the sight of the landscape whizzing beneath his sight.

With a curse sworn under his breath, Nightflier shook his head, trying to shake the sound of the water spraying inside the showers. It was too loud. He turned off his audio receptors, breathing evenly at the sound of the silence.

He had always preferred silence. As a young sparkling, he had learned Kaon was never silent. It was a noisy city, dark and cruel, and there were always sounds breaking the quiet. The foreboding rumble of derelict buildings; the cry of a child; the faint roar of the crowds cheering gladiators to their deaths; there was always a sound. It hurt and haunted, somehow.

Especially remembering the slaughter. Nightflier felt his armor hinging up in remembrance. The explosions that rocked his audio receptors; the burning buildings; the fire that consumed everything and everyone—he hated fire; the rivers of glowing blue energon; the screams; the grating screams; the screams that strained in agony, shrieked in despair, shouted out names in desperation—

He felt a cry crack from his vocalizer. He shook his head, trying to erase the haunting images and disturbing sounds, and instead he focused on the silence. He lifted his helm towards the spray of the hot water, and suddenly, it was too hot. It was horribly hot. Wildly, his servos scrambled to make it cold, and the freezing blast that suddenly assaulted him was a relief. Stabilizing his vents, Nightflier let the chilled water pour over his neck like a libation to cover the horrors of his past.

Instead, to tear his mind away, he focused on the present and felt the dread creep back up. The Forge of Solus Prime was practically dead of power. If it had enough power to even restore his wings that would be a blessing. But what of it? He didn't want to use what little power it held simply because Optimus had asked him to use its power to restore the Omega Lock. Yet he argued with himself that there was no use to try when he wouldn't have the Omega Keys too, much less the skill to recreate the Omega Lock, not did the Forge have that kind of power left in it. Optimus hadn't known when he had perished, but he still didn't want to go against the Prime's last request.

He felt a brush up against his spark. His father. Even that he felt twisted and turned against him. Nightflier struggled in several tight vents to control his emotions that wanted to spiral, and he let him know his touch was a relief, but not welcome at the moment. He needed some time alone to think. He felt Dreadwing's push that he was there for him. A stroke of guilt painted across Nightflier's optics. He had mended the bond with his father only to keep pushing him away. He apologized nearly profusely, but really needed the chance to sort out his own thoughts. Though worried, he felt his father brush up one more time to let him know he understood before he withdrew.

And what was he to do about all this in fighting about his father? A Decepticon turned Autobot. They didn't trust him—he could see it in their optics. All of them. Even Ratchet didn't trust him though he seemed to respect him. Wheeljack was out for his energon, Bulkhead kept his distance though didn't seem to mind if Wheeljack pulled his energon, and Bumblebee had killed Skyquake. His uncle.

Nightflier's servos clenched into fists, and he drowned in the silence of having his audio receptors turned off. The water pounded, cold and stinging, especially against his raw wounds as he suffered the chill that settled deep inside him. He couldn't hold it against Bumblebee. He liked the mech too much, and Nightstalker looked on him as a brother. Even Dreadwing was confused about him, whether to hate him with all his might like he wanted to or begrudgingly let his respect show for the likable young scout.

And on top of all this, Nightstalker. Grinding his dentures tightly, Nightflier slapped his palms against the wall of the showers, bracing himself there as he drowned in his thoughts, water falling all around him. He couldn't understand it. What was so bad that she had to keep it from her own brother? He couldn't fathom the idea. It bothered him, and it hurt him that she was keeping him isolated from her. He wanted so badly just to have his sister back, and she kept pushing him away . . .

Pit, even HE had his dark side. He had things he was ashamed of, things he wouldn't share with the others, his own sins he had committed. But he was still willing to bond. He knew what that meant, and he understood the price, but he believed in his sister. He believed in unconditional love. How he was able to accept his father after all of these years. How his father accepted him, even knowing his faults.

His servos fisted. Conflicted, angry, oppressed, and despairing tears pricked his optics. He hadn't even let himself dwell on the problems outside of the Autobots. How were they supposed to combat the Decepticons? They had a Predacon to call at their every beck and whim! They had the resources they needed to survive! Pit, they even had enough energon to survive, and the Autobots were only going to be able to hold out for a week before they all offlined?

How was he supposed to lead the Autobots? How was he supposed to take on Megatron? He was half the mech's size! He was crippled! He couldn't do anything! He couldn't lead them, and that's what they were looking for him to do. The feeling of pressure weighted down his shoulders, and Nightflier trembled, but not from the cold of the showers.

He tried to reach to the Primes for some sort of assurance. What he was supposed to do. A word of help, anything. But he received nothing. Nothing but the idea that he had to take action. But what good were they! He didn't know what to do, and they had nothing to tell them! He spat a particularly foul curse word Optimus's way before apologizing in shame and withdrawing from the Matrix.

So perhaps they couldn't help him with his problems. He had the knowledge, but he didn't know how to utilize it. He didn't know how to lead. And the Autobots were looking to him? They looked to him for leadership? For assurance? For help? He couldn't even comfort himself! They looked to him for resistance against the Decepticons? For fearlessness? For protection?

A harsh cry wrenched from his vocalizer, and with his audio receptors turned off, Nightflier had no idea how loud he was.

_I couldn't even protect my own sister in the Kaon attack! What makes them think I can protect all of them?_

He felt his mistakes accumulating over his head. They pressed down, a weight on his shoulders that threatened to crush his will. He braced himself against the wall of the shower, struggling with his inner demons and looming defeat before he had even began.

He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to combat this, and he couldn't do anything about it.

What had Ultra Magnus seen in him? Was there anything at all?

* * *

><p>Arcee groaned softly, stretching her back. Scouting all that energon today had given her a crick. Granted, it hadn't been too bad since she got to take Jack along for the ride, but being cooped up in her alt mode for so many hours could wear on a bot. And to boot, the route she had been assigned had been recently rained on. Mud was caked up her sides from the road.<p>

She headed to the showers, and when she got there, she huffed to herself when the water had been left running. No doubt by Bumblebee again. She stepped inside, shivering in the stinging cold—had he really left it on long enough to let it get cold! She was about to crank the heat up when a sharp gasp met her audio receptors.

Arcee whirled, and her optics bulged when she saw Nightflier bracing himself against the far wall, a place she had completely overlooked when she first came into the wash racks. She pressed a hand against her rapidly beating spark, exploding, "Nightfall! Scrap, you gave me a spark attack!"

However, he gave no indication he had heard. Arcee frowned when he merely continued to shake and breathe harder than was prudent. "Nightfall?" Still, no response. "Nightfall?" His chassis heaved in plain sight, no armor barring her view of his black protoform or of his wounds as he struggled with his inner demons.

Finally, softer, she asked again, "Nightflier?" but he still never heard her, having turned his audio receptors off. She approached him slowly, cautiously as her gaze drifted to his face, pinched and warped with passion, optics screwed shut and brows slanted as he vented sharply. Her optics initially followed the curve of his shoulders, admiring of the strength there before her optics dipped to his back, and her spark stilled.

That . . . That was his wound? She stared in horrified awe through the sheet of icy cold shower water at his raw wound bared open without the satin sheet to cover it up. It was no wonder he wore the sheet. Thankfully, the water had washed away the residue pus of the day, but for some reason that made it worse. The wound was clean, fresh, and each droplet hitting him had to sting with pain. Arcee's optics trembled as she came close, almost unable to comprehend what she was looking at.

The protoform of his back was tough, almost brittle-like from old burns that had healed with a leathery texture over his back. Worse still was the eerie and disturbing sight of his back struts on the right side, like bones in plain sight with his protoform cut away and removed with clean slices. Surgical. It opened him up and the fresh wounds of having his wings ripped off glistened wetly under the light, raw and sickening. She felt her energon tanks roll when she saw his joints try to move, to flutter his wings, and the ripped protoform moved around it.

She whirled, pressing her hands to her optics as she struggled to push away the grisly sight of the wound he bore. No one should have to deal with something like that. No one. And yet, he did. Because he had to. Arcee shuddered, and she felt her spark swell painfully with compassion when she heard a choked sound squeeze from his vocalizer.

A warmth started in her that had nothing to do with the freezing shower. It pooled somewhere in her torso, caught between her spark and stomach, and she shook her helm again, wanting so badly do something. She turned back towards him, and she saw that he was shaking almost uncontrollably. His helm pressed against the wall now, and his servos were inching up to grasp at his helm.

Her spark throbbed in pain as she looked at him. Pity and empathy warred inside her, and her throat worked. Arcee fought for a steadying breath. She had never so much in her life wanted to just take someone up in her arms and never let go. She had never wanted so much to whisper words of comfort, to chase away the demons and responsibility that hung over his head.

He gave another strangled cry, and he hit the wall in pure frustration. His protoform flexed and tensed with the motion, and Arcee swallowed hard, stuck somewhere between that magnetism that initially drew her to him so much and the need to provide him with that something more he was looking for. Something a bit more affectionate than just checking around with purely wondering intentions about their emotions.

A serious relationship.

She wanted to fill whatever it was that made him hurt right now. She wanted to fix the problems that he had to deal with, and she wanted to show him what she would do for him and to be there for him. After all, there was nothing quite like seeing someone hit rock bottom and the pure despair that overcame them in their greatest tribulations.

Arcee's optics dropped to his back again that expanded and contracted roughly with irregular breaths. Shaking, her hand reached out, fingers trembling with muted passions as she stretched to touch him. By Primus, she wanted to touch him so badly. Everything about him. To touch the muscle that lent him strength, to slide her fingers over the catches in his armor, to drag her fingertips over the leathery look of his improperly healed burned protoform. To lightly brush over those wounds that made him half the mech he was.

Her touch hesitated at the last second. Her fingertips hovered mere inches away from his heaving back, and another conflicted cry broke free of his lips. Her hand jerked back when he got too close, and her throat worked hard. Her volatile spark reacted almost violently, and she gasped as a realization struck her. One she didn't want to face.

When he began to sink to his knees, Arcee whirled on her peds and darted from the wash racks. Bolting from the doorway, she slammed her back against the wall and panted sharply, thin and ragged. She sank down, aft on the ground as she pressed herself against the wall almost in the gesture to be closer to him when in fact she couldn't bring herself to come any closer.

Her spark stuttered, singing a staccato song that resonated further inside than she had expected. She wanted him so much it hurt—body and soul. But she closed her optics, panting as her fingers tightened on the ground, so conflicted and so full of passion she thought she would break.

_My spark isn't ready for this._

* * *

><p>His optics swept the room once. Twice.<p>

"Where is Nightfall?"

The bots looked at each other questioningly, and the humans, who were half dozing on the couch that night before really falling asleep, just shook their heads. Ultra Magnus vented, brows pinching.

"Does no one know where he is? I need to speak with him."

Arcee avoided his optic contact. Instead, when he looked to Dreadwing, the great mech inclined his head, stating, "He's in the wash racks."

Ultra Magnus frowned. "Sir."

Dreadwing paused, and though his brows pinched because he was getting used to his lower rank, stated respectfully, "Sir."

The moment stretched a little awkwardly as Ultra Magnus took in the polite mannerisms of the former Decepticon before he gave him a civil nod back and turned, heading out to find Nightfall. He fought back a moment of irritation. If not for Dreadwing's connection to his spark, they would not have known where their Prime was. He couldn't just run off like that without telling anyone. If not for Dreadwing, that stunt could have easily alarmed the entire base.

He transformed down into his alt mode to hide his true form before he drove from the confines of the base and to hangar C. Once inside, he transformed up, and he spotted him to the side, pressing his hands against the wall.

"Nightfall," he stated from the doorway so he wouldn't get wet, "may I have a word?"

He didn't respond, and after a moment, Ultra Magnus frowned. "Nightfall Prime, please do not ignore me," he said, but he received little more than a sharp breath. His lips pressed. "Nightfall!"

Still, he was granted no answer. Finally, a shuddered breath left Nightflier, and Ultra Magnus paused. "Are you listening? Nightfall, turn on your audio receptors."

Of course, there was no way for him to hear him, so Ultra Magnus vented a sigh and walked into the showers. As he came closer, his steps became slower, and his optics darkened a shade when he drew within clear sight of the Prime's back. The grotesque wound caused him heavy pause, and his lips pressed as he looked at the product of what Megatron had done to him. Drawing a breath, Ultra Magnus laid a gentle hand on Nightflier's shoulder.

The Prime reacted with startled panic, and he gasped thinly before yanking and whirling away. However, he tried so hard to get away that he slammed his back into the wall, and an agonized cry tore from his vocalizer. Ultra Magnus knelt and reached out to him when a spasm shuddered through him and he sank to the floor.

"Nightfall, easy. Are you all right?"

Nightflier looked up with wild optics. Ultra Magnus leaned away slightly, taken aback by the raw passions pouring from this small mech, and finally, an incomprehensible sound cracked from Nightflier's vocalizer and he threw himself forward into the commander's stomach plates.

Ultra Magnus froze for several kliks before he could get his vocalizer to function again. "Nightfall, please let go," he said. "This is highly inappropriate, and—"

"Don't you cite protocol to me right now," he heard the smaller mech rasp. His clawed fingers dug into his back almost desperately for some kind of anchor of wisdom. "Just—Just shut up for one Primus-blessed minute—!"

Surprisingly, Ultra Magnus found himself doing exactly that. He knelt uncertainly in the freezing cold shower with his Prime, uncertain of what to do with the smaller mech trembling and holding on to him. Periodically, a shudder and a sob would wrack the seeker's shoulders before a sharp vent swallowed it all back.

By fits and starts he would snatch in a stabilizing breath before burying his face more into Ultra Magnus's stomach. Finally, though hesitant, Ultra Magnus put a comforting servo on Nightflier's upper arm. The Prime shivered. The commander's optics dimmed slightly as, for once, he truly realized exactly how small Nightflier was and how small he felt—his hand absolutely swallowed the mech's shoulder and upper arm. He couldn't begin to imagine what the mech must have felt like when he had taken on Megatron when Ultra Magnus himself had felt small when he had been fighting the warlord.

It took him several long minutes, but finally, Nightflier began to calm himself. He shivered once more, this time more from the cold of being in the freezing shower for so long, and he vented hard once against Ultra Magnus before letting him go and forcing himself to stand up. Still, he braced a servo on the commander's shoulder and sucked in a deep breath, steadying himself.

Ultra Magnus felt himself pause again. "Phantom pain?"

He nodded. "That too."

He didn't have anything to say to that. After a moment more, Nightflier opened his optics again and looked his second in command straight in the optics. "Ultra Magnus . . . How . . . How did Optimus deal with all of this? When he was made Prime?"

The commander felt a suspicious hurting in his spark. "I do not know," he told the younger mech truthfully.

He squeezed his optics shut again. After a moment, he opened them, and he was appalled by how drained the young mech was. "What if . . ." he whispered. "What if . . . you're called to die?"

Ultra Magnus stopped. The gravity of his voice was real. Finally, he said quietly, "As long as I am around, I will not let you die, Nightfall."

Nightflier swallowed tightly. _**To sacrifice yourself and give me what is left. I ask for your death. **_He shook his head. "What if . . . the sacrifice is inevitable?"

Ultra Magnus reached out to grip one of his shoulders. He looked him straight in the optics, his own optics dark with worry. "Nightfall, what are you talking about?"

The young Prime looked up, apprehension curling in the back of his eyes. Then, he suddenly shook his head, muttering, "It's fine. Please, forget I said anything." With a sense of defeat, he suddenly wondered if it was a good thing Nightstalker wouldn't bond with him. Maybe it had been a mistake to bond with his father. He hated the idea of leaving them to suffer spark break whenever . . . whenever he was supposed to meet his end.

Nightflier shook his helm, trembling. "Let's get out of these showers," he finally said to his second in command. "I'm freezing."

Quietly, they turned off the water and dried off, a shake seizing Nightflier every once in a while because he was so cold. How long had he stayed in the shower and his thoughts? He didn't really know, but as he tied the satin sheet around his neck to hide his wounds, it was completely dark now that night. As they walked back to the main hangar, he felt Ultra Magnus rest a strength-giving servo on his shoulder, and Nightflier vented softly, taking a great deal of comfort in that small touch.

"Did you need to talk to me?" he suddenly asked as they entered the main hangar.

Ultra Magnus vented, considered his options, and finally shook his head. "It can wait for another time," he told the younger mech.

Nightflier closed his optics, taking a deep breath before he shook his head. "It's all right," he told him. "You might as well go ahead and—"

"PRIME!"

Agent Fowler's classic exclamation of the Prime designation cause Nightflier to cringe visibly, and he peeked over to the gangway Fowler stood on, amazed that such a big sound could come from such a small human. Fowler seemed to pause, sensing the smaller mech's discomfort, but Nightflier just took a breath and a step forward. "Yes?"

"Satellite surveillance has picked up two signs of Decepticon activity," Agent Fowler reported. "One near an oil fill outside of El Paso, and the other near the Hiberties Bluffs in Scotland. So don't forget to pack your kilts."

Nightflier blinked. Kilts? "Um . . . Not to sound woefully blissful, but what are kilts and do we have any?"

So used to Optimus taking his euphemisms in stride, it took Fowler a moment. And then, he began to snort with laughter, struggling to hold it in as he finally choked out, "I'm sorry, Prime, please, scratch that from the record," and continued to laugh all the way into his office.

Nightflier just stared for one moment more before he realized he was supposed to be issuing orders. "All right then," he started to say, and he paused as he took in his soldiers. He didn't know their strengths. Wheeljack and Bulkhead were clearly capable warriors, Bulkhead being a heavy hitter with his size, but he couldn't tell about Wheeljack. Smokescreen was a rookie—he clearly didn't have that much time in the field, though he was sure the harsh training of the Elite Guard would give him a leg up.

Cliffjumper seemed like a balanced warrior. He got that from his optics alone. Arcee was a formidable warrior, as he had seen firsthand. Bumblebee was just the scout, but he had yet to see him in action. Dreadwing used to be a lieutenant, and so he was bound to be a warrior on par with Ultra Magnus, plus his air superiority. Ratchet was his medic, so he would stay in the base, and Nightstalker—

Nightstalker?

Nightflier blinked at her. What would she be? Certainly not a warrior at that size, could she? Ah, but Arcee was small and one extremely skilled warrior. Who was he to judge his own sister? But no, not those optics. He could see it. She couldn't be a warrior. Maybe a scout? She would certainly be fast enough—

"Nightfall? What are your orders."

He jumped at the sound of Ultra Magnus's voice. "Oh! S-Sorry, um, was just thinking . . ." He paused again. "Well, we're going to have to split up. Ah, Ultra Magnus, you can take the Wreckers to the Bluffs. Um, and El Paso—" He felt his mind grind to a halt. Sending them all would be overkill. Only a few, just in case they needed to respond to another emergency, correct? "Smokescreen, Bumblebee—" and he bit his lip, peds shuffling unconsciously as he thought. "Dreadwing and Nightstalker."

He heard an audible groan from Cliffjumper, but a sharp elbow from Arcee silenced him quick. Nightflier nodded to himself, as if convincing himself of his choices. He needed to have Dreadwing out in the field to solidify his part as an Autobot. They needed to learn how to trust him. Nightstalker could work as a mediating factor, and whatever was between Bumblebee and Dreadwing needed to be worked out, right? Battle forced bots to work together—he knew first hand with Groove and Blades with one particularly fierce argument that had driven a rift through the team, and Hot Spot forcing them together had quickly made them work it out.

"Bulkhead. Wheeljack. Let's roll." Nightflier eyed them as Wheeljack groaned under his breath. Hm. And Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus needed things settled too, yes? He pinched his brows. SO much muted in fighting they needed to get settled. That was one thing he could remember from Hot Spot—there had to be peace in the ranks for them to work as a team. It was what allowed Hot Spot to command such a philosophically different bots like Blades and First Aid as such a tight and effective unit.

"Nightfall." He looked up to see Ultra Magnus standing before the Forge of Solus Prime. "I know there are many emotions tied to the Forge . . ."

He debated it for one click and gave a small shrug. "It's not doing much good sitting there collecting dust," he said.

Ultra Magnus gave a grateful nod as he picked up the drained Forge. "I would be honored to put this to some practical use."

* * *

><p>The day was . . . LONG.<p>

And worrisome.

Nightflier hated idleness. And he hated waiting. As the Protectobots' one and only seeker, he could scout things out the best, get behind enemy lines the best—he was always sent deep into the thick of things and behind enemy lines. He was always in the middle of it all, always getting his abilities used. To have it all stripped away by his handicap, he festered with the urge to DO something.

He chatted some with Cliffjumper and Arcee. He finally got to drill Cliffjumper and determine if he was good enough for his sister—though, he had to admit, he was probably biased because he REALLY liked the mech. He went and saw his human friends again, much to their delight. And when Wheeljack asked for a bridge back to base, clearly sore about something—other than the 'Cons getting the bone—Nightflier forced him to go along with Arcee and Cliffjumper to Tahos, New Mexico. After all, threatening to talk about Wheeljack's problems had made the mech narrow his optics at the Prime, turn on his heel, and walk out with the two.

But in short?

Each mission was a failure.

And, somehow, Nightflier found a way to blame that on himself too. Maybe he had split them up wrong? They blamed his father for losing the bone, though Nightstalker blamed herself, saying she lost her nerve at the last second when the bridge opened up. Had he sent too many weaker, greener links on one team? Should he have sent another seasoned warrior with Nightstalker's group? Maybe the Wreckers had needed another. Maybe he shouldn't have let Wheeljack go with Ultra Magnus since their disagreements clearly backfired. Letting the humans go out alone was a stupid idea. He knew he should have told Ratchet to go with them.

So Nightflier brooded and stressed over things as Ratchet again doctored his back, sopping up the oozing energon and oiling his exposed back struts so they wouldn't grate. He took comfort in his father's underlying assurance while he fought on the inside with himself. What were they supposed to do to combat the Predacon? Much less, if Shockwave was cloning more . . . A slight tremble shook his frame. How could they fight more, much less when they couldn't even fight one?

Ah, and recent pressure on his Prime position. Not only was it Ultra Magnus, but the Primes inside of the Matrix of Leadership that vastly disapproved of his affectionate nature. They claimed—more so the Primes, as Ultra Magnus had yet to fully grasp it—that he shouldn't be fraternizing with Arcee. He couldn't afford attachments at this point, and he couldn't have a bias to his soldiers. He shouldn't bond with Nightstalker, he shouldn't have bonded with Dreadwing again.

It bothered Nightflier. He couldn't even love freely anymore? It made him despise his position more, but he knew he had to do what he had to do.

A sharp pain in his back snapped him back to the land of the living, and Nightflier stiffened and hissed, snapping, "Watch it, Ratchet! It's sensitive!" Then, catching his glossia, he pressed his palm to his forehead, muttering, "Sorry. I'm just a little stressed."

The medic gave a perturbed hum under his breath. "Don't worry about it," he told him. "It was my fault. I will try to be gentler."

Nightflier cast his optics over the room again, taking in each bot. At least Wheeljack was getting along better with the others now. Arcee had mentioned she had talked to him while Cliffjumper had complained about being the useless third wheel . . . He supposed she must have said something meaningful to him. But in general? He could still see that dark haze over the bots. They weren't happy. And he didn't know how to lift their spirits. Couldn't lift them.

* * *

><p>Nightstalker caught herself looking at Ultra Magnus again and swore under her breath.<p>

_Get it together you little whore. I don't care if he's the sexiest thing you've seen, I will tear out your optics if you look at him like that again._

Two weeks since her last night with Cliffjumper, and Nightstalker was getting absolutely crazy. With all the threat from the Decepticons, and Darkmount, and the Predacons, there hadn't been a mite of a moment to themselves, especially with the strict chain of command. But now? This night after everyone's missions, she couldn't stop her optics from sliding over to Ultra Magnus who was shaped so Primus-slagged much like Optimus it made her stomach heat up.

But Primus-damn those legs that went on and on for goddamn miles! Ooh, and the little accents of lights on his stomach—no, that just wouldn't do. He shouldn't make that delectable stomach anymore tempting than it already was. Mh, and those hips and that aft, and that thunderously heavy chassis coupled with those glorious audio finials . . .

With a small growl, Nightstalker grabbed her helm.

_Argh! What the FRAG am I thinking!_

It took a moment, but when Nightstalker realized that almost every head in the room had turned towards her, she had actually spoken that last thought out loud. She narrowed her optics, and obviously she must have given the look of the Pit because everyone looked away quickly.

She vented sharply. It wasn't like she hadn't seen a hot mech before. But then again, other than Megatron or Optimus, he was the first one she had actually lusted after. But she belonged to Cliffjumper, processor and spark AND body! She shouldn't even be thinking things like this!

Quickly, she roundabout turned her back on Ultra Magnus and looked over to where Cliffjumper was laughing with Bumblebee as they played a last late round of games with the kids since they hadn't seen the humans all day. To fight what she liked about Ultra Magnus's body, she immediately combated it with things she liked about Cliffjumper. The thing that immediately hit the top of her list was his arms. Primus she loved his arms, strong and powerful, and the way he would hold her and make her feel safe.

She liked his horns. A favorite pastime being grabbing the sensitive spot and riding him. Yes, she loved his horns. She liked the fact that he was smaller, and it was easier to get up on her toes and kiss him. She liked his laugh so warm that vibrated through his broad chassis, another feature she liked so much. And his lips. It was just too bad his aft was so flat compared to how nice Ultra Magnus's was—

Nightstalker's mind grinded to a halt as she tried to shake off that last thought. But it easily butted its way in again, and she could only imagine getting her claws into the sensitive spots of Ultra Magnus. How much would it take for him to finally lose his cool? And how generously endowed a mech of his size would be—

She shook her head as she glared across the base at the temptation that stood so stolidly at the computer as he double checked the day's events before he briefed Nightflier a little more about things like the incomplete Synthen formula. He was strict. He'd never go for it anyway, and it was a good bar to her fantasies. And that face. That was one thing she didn't like. He was always frowning. Always. And if he wasn't frowning, he was scowling even angrier.

Another bout of laughter turned her head from the stoic commander back to the mech she loved so much. As if tantamount to her thoughts, the broadest grin was on his face as he lightly shouldered Bumblebee in the effort to distract the mech from the game so he could win the round. Nightstalker's spark softened even as the unwilling heat from her guilty fantasies burned hot. Cliffjumper's ready smile, and his way to lighten any situation. Yes, yet another reason she loved him.

However, she had just gotten herself worked up.

Stalking across the base, Nightstalker grabbed the controller out of his hand and tossed it on the couch. He started to protest with, "Hey! C'mon, Nights, I was win—" and then, she grabbed his hand, pulling him away and snapping, "You're coming with me."

Cliffjumper just blinked as she hauled him away, and she was half aware of him calling out a couple of apologies for bailing on them before they were out the door of the base. Nightstalker dragged him off, Cliffjumper mildly asking where they were going, but she only was able to take him a few buildings down before she chose the dark inside of another one, pulled the door open, and shoved Cliffjumper in. He staggered with a good natured laugh until she slammed the door back shut and turned blazing orange optics on him.

Desperate to drown all of her thoughts about Ultra Magnus in Cliffjumper, Nightstalker pounced on him the moment they were alone. Slamming her mouth down on his, Nightstalker nipped and bit, wound up with hot need that had slowly built over the weeks without a release. Cliffjumper responded with a typical eagerness as her claws dug under his sensitive plating, groaning softly before passing his palms flat down her sides. He staggered backwards, hitting the wall, and Nightstalker's glossia invaded his mouth for a hot, slick dance before he was able to wrest his mouth away long enough to ask with a pleased chuckle,

"To what do I owe this quickie?"

Nightstalker growled, humping her hips aggressively into his. "Just frag me," she snapped, so angry with herself for thinking about Ultra Magnus like this that she absolutely seethed. The dim light of the hangar glinted off his armor, a factor that hampered her hungry process on his body, but she was honestly too torqued to even care at this point. She'd do him fully armored if she had to.

Her lips crushed down on his again, and Cliffjumper responded in kind, hands groping her thighs. Nightstalker shuddered before she reached up, grabbing his sensitive horns, and he moaned a bit loudly when she hoisted herself up so her legs could grip around his waist. Having experience with her partner, she knew exactly what would be pressing painfully against his interface plating. Nightstalker bent her head down, nipping and suckling on his neck wires as she freed his spike from its casing, her thumb giving it a long smooth stroke.

A clatter of something dropping passed over Nightstalker's helm, but Cliffjumper noticed the sound. Then, with an urgent, "Night—Nights, stop, stop it Nights—" his hands suddenly started to fight her. Nightstalker growled shortly, and it was on the tip of her glossia to tell him off when he gripped her wrists tightly to stop her touches and jerked his head meaningfully to the side.

Nightstalker scowled and looked, and then, she froze, optics popping wide. Four humans using the light of a lamp for a card game stared with jaws hanging wide open and eyes so big they could have swallowed the world. Nightstalker swore under her breath, all but leaping off of Cliffjumper as the mech hastily put his boner away, wincing with the effort.

Casino, Clothesline, Boobie, and Timber all stared until Timber finally gave the broadest grin, swearing, "Holy FUCK!" That snapped Casino and Clothesline out of their apparent stupor, Casino blushing slightly while Clothesline grinned too. "That was HOT!"

Boobie just kept that stoned look on her face, gaze transfixed on the apex of Cliffjumper's legs. Nightstalker's wings dropped and she blushed hotly, as did Cliffjumper, and Clothesline leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs and drawling, "Aw, c'mon now, don't stop on account of us!"

This time, Nightstalker's flush was one of anger. Her wings snapped upright, and her claws fisted as she took one deliberate step towards them. "I so swear if you guys breathe one word of this to ANYONE I will skewer your heads on a pike."

Not true, but it got her point across. Casino lifted her hands quickly in submission, "As long as you don't talk about any gambling, we won't talk about any sex."

Nightstalker's optics flicked over the money piled on the table, and she gave them one strict nod. "Deal." Then, she grabbed Cliffjumper and stalked back out with him into the night.

Cliffjumper tugged her close. "So?" he whispered. "What's the problem?"

Nightstalker blushed hotly. "Promise you won't hate me?" she muttered.

"I promise."

She dropped her helm, fluttering her wings. "Well, um . . . I . . . Looked at Ultra Magnus wrong."

It took him a moment before it suddenly clicked. "Oh. Well, what about it?"

Nightstalker's helm snapped up and she gaped. "Wh-What? You're not worried about that?"

That caused him to chuckle and nuzzle her affectionately. "It's normal to find others attractive, Nights. I'm not going to hate you because you like how he looks. I know I'm not the greatest looker in the world. I'm just glad instead of doing something, or even thinking about it long, you dragged me off for some kinky recreational activity." He grinned, tweaking her nose. "Besides," he said, cod warming hot again at how her mouth was poised gaping wide open, perfect to fit something inside that pressed painfully against his cod. A pity he'd have to hold it back until they were out of range of the base entirely for some privacy. "When I'm through with you," he purred suggestively, "you won't even remember what Ultra Magnus looks like."

After a moment of staring after the two Cybertronians that hastily left, the humans turned back to the gambling table—all but one, that is.

Timber grinned at Boobie. "C'mon, Boobie, close your mouth. There's no way you could get it around that."

Her jaw mechanically shut with a clack of teeth. She huffed, muttering, "Well, it certainly puts it into perspective . . ."

Casino rolled her eyes and kicked her friend under the table. "Oh boy. Someone's gonna have some fantasies."

"Not about her or the red one," Boobie quipped, which sent the group into laughter as they thought about a certain smaller, black seeker that was brother to Nightstalker.


	61. Cloud 9

**Author's Note:**

**Heyo! :) Been a little bit since my last post, but this chapter was being a butt to write. I think it was because I couldn't get happy enough to write it. XD Anyways, enjoy, and brace yourselves for the next chapter! **

* * *

><p>"Dude! Nightflier! We saw your sister getting it on!"<p>

"Agh, Timber, really? That's his sister you're talking about!"

"I'm not kidding, that robot cock was HUGE."

"Who was the red mech? Did you know about this?"

"Nightflier, get your sexy ass over here! Family meeting!"

Nightflier stood rooted to the spot, halfway to the main hangar when he heard his passel of human pals calling out to him. Actually, shouting at the top of their lungs with the recent topic of gossip. His jaw was partially unhinged from the first statement; he thanked D.O.A silently on the inside for reprimanding Timber; he wondered if that HUGE statement was just blown out of proportions because they were human; yes, he knew about Cliffjumper . . . who had promised to be good; and did Boobie just call him sexy?

But mainly, his processor grinded to a stop at the fact that his sister had been caught interfacing. No, not even that she had been caught—she was INTERFACING.

Nightflier groaned, squeezing his optics shut and looking helplessly to the sky, claws digging into his face as the humans beckoned him over.

This. Could NOT. Be happening.

Defeated and more than a little angry, Nightflier turned and strode purposefully towards the humans in their matching uniforms, and he knelt, holding up a hand. It took a minute, but they finally settled down long enough for him to strain out of his vocalizer, "Just . . . WHAT happened last night?"

"Just like I said!" Timber burst in eagerly, a big grin on his freckled face. "You're sister's the little winged one, right? Dude, she was ALL OVER that red one! Whipped out his junk like a real br—"

Prophet elbowed Timber sharply before he could get the word "broad" out of his mouth when he saw Nightflier's horrified face. "I DON'T need details," Nightflier choked up, looking as if he had swallowed something that disagreed with him. "Primus, they—you mean—RIGHT IN THE OPEN—!" He groaned again dropping his face into his palms. "Oh Primus, I think I'm gonna be sick . . ."

"Easy," Casino said quickly, trying to undo some of the damage. "We stopped them—"

"Right before she ran off with him again!" Double Down snickered. "Since she's your sister I'm trying to refrain from saying exactly how hot that was—"

D.O.A. whacked him upside the head, and Angel cracked his knuckles. "So, should we get some crowbars ready for that red Charger?"

Nightflier vented sharply, shaking his head. "No, but thank you for that offer. I'll have to deal with them myself . . ." And he groaned again, getting a splitting headache at the mere thought that crippled his processor. "I can't believe them! He said—AGH. I'm gonna KILL him."

"I take it he promised to keep his hands to himself?" Prophet asked with an arch of his brow.

"Basically!" Nightflier exploded.

Boobie laughed, and she grinned, winking up at him. "Well, before you go plan that one's execution, I've gotta ask—can I see YOURS?"

Nightflier gaped for a moment, and a combination of laughter and groans filtered through the tight-knit group. "I—I—What! No! Boobie, come on!"

"Just a quick flash?" she asked with a pout of her lips. "I'll flash my headlights for the chance," she said, and that brought a bigger round of laughter as they all remembered Ultra Magnus.

Nightflier couldn't help but roll his optics then, a grin tipping his lips up. "NO, Boobie, I'm not flashing you anything!"

On a chuckle, Iggy Pop began to light a cigarette. Nightflier winced back, falling all the way back on his aft at the sudden presence of fire, and the man looked up at him.

"Whoa! You all right?"

Nightflier swallowed, all traces of laughter gone as he stared at the one flame that flickered on the lighter. Then, the cap snapped shut, extinguishing the flame, and Nightflier gave a small laugh. "Y-Yeah, I'm fine. Really! Don't look at me like that, guys."

Iggy Pop raised a brow. "You're afraid of fire?"

A threatening roar of an inferno rose up in his memory banks, and he tried to shake it off with a, "Not really."

Iggy Pop lit the lighter again, taking a step forward and waving it at him. Against his will, Nightflier cringed away, the bestial growl of that conflagration getting closer. When Iggy Pop blew out the flame and hiked up a brow, Nightflier huffed out a sigh, admitting, "Okay, maybe a little."

He took a deep puff of his cigarette, and Nightflier's energon tanks rolled at the stinging smell of the smoke. "Seems more like a lot," D.O.A. said to him. The big man crossed his arms, whiskers twitching. "So what happened there?"

When they all stood there waiting for a story—much like he had asked about the stories of their names—Nightflier vented, tugging nervously on the satin sheet tied around his neck as he sat back down on his aft. "Well, um . . . You know that we, the Autobots, have been at war with the Decepticons for millennia, right?"

He drew out some righteous stares. "No kidding," Clothesline finally managed. "How old are you, kid?"

He gave a small shrug, almost choking on the stench of the cigarette. "I'd say around 4 millennia."

Boobie groaned. "Shucks, I'm only 29. I guess that makes you too old for me, right?"

Nightflier grinned, and he nudged her with a finger. "Too old AND too Cybertronian." Finally, he couldn't take it. He looked at Iggy Pop, throat working and feeling sick as he asked, "I'm sorry but—can you put out the cigarette? It's . . . making me sick."

"Sure—" he started to say, but Angel snatched it from his mouth and dropped it on the ground. "About time," he said impatiently, grinding it to dust to which Iggy Pop angrily shoved at Angel. He grinned up. "I've been telling him how bad it is for him, but he just won't listen!"

Nightflier smiled ruefully as Double Down suddenly asked, "But you're not the oldest, are you?"

Nightflier shook his head. "No. I'm actually one of the youngest, though I think that title goes to Bumblebee or Smokescreen . . . The oldest is Ratchet."

Double Down frowned. "Which one is he?"

"The ambulance," he said, and he gathered several nods. "The sport cars are the young ones."

"So how old DO you guys get?" Casino asked curiously, shielding her eyes from the rising sun to look up at his face.

Nightflier frowned. "Good question. I've known bots 12 millennia of age," and he couldn't help but think of the old mech that had helped teach him a little bit of Circuit-Su before his died. The humans gaped more, trying to wrap their minds around it. Nightflier shook his head. "But I've seen bots that look TWICE as old as him. And heard of bots that are supposed to have come from as early as the original Thirteen."

"Twelve millennia . . ." Prophet breathed, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead, mind still stuck back there in the conversation.

"Sorry," Clothesline finally said with a small grin, "got us a bit off track there. So you Autobots and these Decepticons have been at war for millennia?"

Nightflier nodded. "For four millennia, basically. My whole life. And . . . when I was little . . . there was a—a routing. Of all the femmes and sparklings." He winced at their blank looks. "Women and children."

Several dark swears were heard, and the entire conversation suddenly grew grim. Nightflier shifted. "So, um . . . My mom died early, and my dad was off fighting in the war, and Nightstalker's dad was too . . . so we were street rats. And we were playing hide and seek when the routing began. So we were separated, and . . . I tried to find her."

He tried to flutter his wings, flustered when he couldn't do it. "It . . ." He sucked in a tight breath, chassis expanding as he tried not to let it get to him again. "Basically, my home city of Kaon was burning," he hurriedly explained. "Femmes and sparklings were getting slaughtered everywhere, and I was just a kid at this point, Nightstalker even younger, and I couldn't find her anywhere, and after seeing bodies thrown in fires to get melted down for spare parts and seeing the buildings burning, and the fire, and the smell of the smoke and the bodies—"

Disturbed, he stopped short, cycling in tight breaths to fight off the memories that crept up inside him to consume him. "So that's why I'm scared of fire, and that's why femmes are so rare to find, and that's why there's not many bots as young as or younger than me . . ." He chafed his arms, feeling uncomfortably hot in the quickly warming day in the Nevada desert.

Casino suddenly stepped forward, patting his knee from where he sat crisscross with them. "It's all right, kiddo," she said comfortingly. "Take a deep breath."

Nightflier did so, taking comfort in the presence of his friends, and finally, Prophet had to ask quietly, "So . . . If all the women and kids were supposed to . . . Then how did you survive?"

Hitching up his knees to his chest and hugging them, Nightflier briefly explained, "I did almost die, but I was found by Autobots and taken in. My sister was found by Decepticons, and, on some whim, the medic that found her chose to save her." He shrugged. "I don't know about Bumblebee or Smokescreen, you'd have to ask them yourself."

"All right," Iggy Pop said suddenly, and he crossed his chest, "cross my heart and hope to die, I won't ever light up again in front of you."

Nightflier's lips twisted up into a smile, and his, "Thank you," was drowned out by Angel snorting and claiming, "Then we oughta keep you around here permanently so we can finally kill this addiction."

"Aw, lay off, Angel. You act like a demon with this medical crap."

Nightflier grinned, thinking of a certain other medic. Casino frowned in concern, asking, "Just a little bit of fire's enough to trigger the memories?"

"Wh—No! No, of course not, but it does automatically put my train of thought in that direction." Nightflier rubbed the back of his neck, admitting, "It has to be a pretty big blaze to get me to, ah, relapse if you will. I'd probably say that's one of my most haunting memories." The insanity he fell into after losing his wing for so long would be a close second.

There was a lengthy pause. Gathering a greater depth of insight to their friend, all conversation was put on hold as they absorbed this gritty part of his past, and before they could get back into conversation, D.O.A. finally grunted, saying, "Well, we've kept you from killing that red bot long enough, and we've got our own day to get to." A collective groan fell from group as if he was acting like their father, and D.O.A. just chuckled.

Nightflier smiled back. "Right. I think I've put off—"

"Nightfall!"

He looked up to where Ultra Magnus and Ratchet beckoned him from in front of the base. He smirked, jerking his head. "And there's my calling. See you guys and girls another time, yeah?"

A collective chorus of goodbyes met his audios as he parted from his human friends again. Nightflier walked over, coming up before his two elders, asking, "Sir?"

Ratchet cleared his through subconsciously, and he glanced over to Ultra Magnus. The commander nodded his helm graciously to Nightflier. "I took the liberties to tell the others of the state of the Forge of Solus Prime, Sir," he stated. "And given its limited capabilities, explained why its meager power could never truly repair the Omega Lock. So we put it up to a vote: what should be done with the Forge's last remaining power."

Nightflier blinked rather slowly, not fully encompassing what he was saying. Ratchet harrumphed, gathering his attention. "While there were several other good arguments as to what we should use the Forge's power on . . . the general consensus was for you to repair your wings."

He recoiled, optics flaring wide with pleasant and shocked surprise. But . . . his wings? But—"But Optimus said . . ."

Ultra Magnus nodded. "Yes. We know. But this was before you were wounded beyond repair. In order to repair your wings by hand, we would need First Aid's assistance and instruments of healing we do not possess. Your injury hampers both your physical and mental health, and we need our Prime strong."

Nightflier's throat worked. "You mean—" Suddenly, needing to know, he hurried past them and into the base where the Autobots looked up, and he exploded, "You want me to repair my wings?" And then, his jaw nearly hit the floor at the femme the bots were crowded around. "By the Celestial Spires . . . NIGHTS . . ."

She jumped, wings flattening self-consciously against her back as she shrank for some odd reason, but Nightflier literally found himself . . . DAZZLED. She all but glittered in the light of the base, her new paintjob the clear topic of discussion, silver, and contrasting stunningly against the black protoform of her thighs.

She flicked worried orange optics up to him. "It's too bright, isn't it?" she said, arms crossing over herself with the effort to shrink and fade back into the background.

His glossia tripped for a minute, unable to speak. "Y—That—I mean—Wh-What?" He came closer, nearly tripping over his peds as he stumbled out, "You have got to be kidding me—of course it's not too bright!"

Ratchet harrumphed in irritation, muttering, "That's what we've been trying to convince her of all morning . . ."

Finally, an overwhelmed smile tugged at Nightflier's lips, and he laughed warmly. "Nights—Aw, jeez, Nights!" He pulled her into a tight hug, rocking her back and forth before holding her out at arm's length, a suspicious mist starting to bug his optics. "By the Celestial Spires, you look so much like Mom . . ."

Ever so slowly, her wings perked back up. "I do?" They perked all the way back up, flaring open and closed. "So it looks okay?"

"OKAY?" Nightflier repeated with exaggerated sarcasm. "Nights, you look beautiful! Aw, Primus, what do we have to do? Beat it into that thick helm of yours?" He head butted her lightly for good measure, drawing a small giggle, and he threw his arm around her shoulder, turning her around to face Dreadwing. "Isn't she just the prettiest thing?"

He reacted like one who hadn't been expecting to be suddenly put in the spotlight, but he blinked rapidly, clearing his vocalizer suspiciously. "Yes," he finally rumbled quietly. "You look . . . gorgeous, Nightstalker."

She blushed hotly, knowing what the colors meant to him. "Thank you," she whispered, dipping her helm.

Nightflier felt the moment pass between them before he leaned over, nuzzling the side of her helm and kissing her cheek. "You look fabulous, Nights. And don't let anyone say anything otherwise." The sudden change in color was dynamic, flipping the entire demeanor of her character. There was a little lift in her chin; a square of her shoulders; a sort of lively sparkle he hadn't realized was missing from her optics until it was there. She had thrown off the colors shackling her down to the past, and he hugged her tightly again, chuckling warmly to see her growing so much as a femme.

She poked his tummy. "Um . . . And as for your question, yes. We want you to have your wings."

Nightflier suddenly stopped, and he opened his mouth to say something—probably to protest—but Ratchet interrupted with a, "Yep-ep-ep! We had enough trouble finally settling on your wings, don't make us have to fight you into fixing yourself too."

His jaw clacked shut. "But . . ." He shifted uncomfortably, looking dubiously at them all. "My wings? I mean—Bumblebee!" He suddenly whirled on the young scout who blinked wide. "I could use the Forge's power to heal your voice box!"

The scout twittered slightly. *Well, sure, but I mean, I'll be okay. Ratchet's going to fix my voice box, so I'm not too worried about it . . . And besides, it can wait. It's not a physical handicap like yours*

"Yeah," Bulkhead suddenly chimed in. "And besides, we know what not flying does to you seekers after seeing Nights go off the walls."

"Hey!"

Bulkhead flinched obligingly when Nightstalker smacked his belly, apologizing, "Wait—That didn't come out right."

"Sure didn't."

She softened her snide little tone by poking her glossia out at him, and Bulkhead blushed, sheepishly rubbing his helm. "Sorry, Nights. You know I didn't mean it like that."

She huffed, but her lips twisted up. "I know." She turned towards Nightflier. "So you," and she poked his chassis, "fix your wings."

Nightflier bit his lip, looking towards the Forge dubiously. Finally, after a moment, he heaved an overwhelmed breath, trying to say, "But I really just—"

"Nightfall," Ultra Magnus suddenly interrupted as graciously as he could. "Please. We have been over this conversation in many different ways, and you said it yourself: without your wings, you are not an asset. You need to be in top shape, Sir."

He shuffled his peds uncertainly, saying, "Okay . . ." He headed up hesitantly to the Forge, with little baby steps because he honestly felt a little intimidated—how was he supposed to heal his wings, first off? He eventually had to chalk it up to blind faith that the Primes in his spark would know what to do since he didn't, but his fingers hesitated before touching the golden hammer.

He turned again. "But—I mean, are you sure? I'd feel bad for using the power if we needed it for something else—"

"Nightflier."

He dipped his helm obediently at his father's voice. "All right," he said nervously again. Taking a deep breath, Nightflier laid his hand on the massive Forge of Solus Prime, and the hammer immediately crackled to life beneath his touch, cogs whirring and snapping with ancient, powerful electricity. The energy moved on its own, rushing up through his body, sizzling every circuit inside, and he felt an answering energy surge through his chassis, the Matrix coming alive with veracity, helping power the meager power of the Forge, giving him a last little blessing to top off the last of his sufferings.

A blue wave of energy blasted through the room, making the bots shield themselves before all became normal again. The Forge whirred to a stop, completely drained of its power, and Nightflier heaved a sigh, turning to face them all with a question in his optics.

"Did it work?"

As he asked that, his wings tipped up, sending the satin sheet falling over his head.

A strangled cry of joy and excitement caught in his vocalizer, and he laughed as he staggered blindly for a moment, trying to get the sheet off, and a surprised yelp squeaked out when he tripped over the Forge before managing to free himself from the sheet.

"My wings!" he cried out, so amazed he jumped back up to his peds and tried to turn around to see them, like a dog chasing its own tail. Then, his ecstatic optics pinned to his sister glimmering silver in the light of the base, and he thought his spark would explode with happiness.

"Nights!" he crowed, and he bolted across the room, grabbing her up in a bear hug and swinging her around. "I've got my wings back! I've got my wings back!"

Nightstalker squealed obligingly with him, and Cliffjumper's warm laughter filled the air at Nightflier's excitement. "Sure do!" he said on a grin. "And it looks like you're already doing a lot better!"

"Sweet Cybertron above, better?" Nightflier yipped again, socking a friendly and firm punch to Cliffjumper's arm. "I'm doing MORE than better! I've got my wings back!" And he whirled back around, catching sight of blue. "Arcee, I've got my wings back!" And he picked her up in a giant hug, swinging her around similarly to Nightstalker, but before she could answer, he hooked an arm around the back of her neck, swung her down, and landed a giant kiss on her lips. With another shout, he moved on, so excited he completely missed Arcee's blush and wide optics as she stared after him.

His optics finally registered his father, optics soft at the sight of his son being whole again, and Nightflier laughed, running up and literally launching himself at him, hugging him arms and legs around his waist. "Dad, look! Look! I've got my wings! My WINGS!"

A soft chuckle actually worked its way from Dreadwing's vocalizer, and he passed a hand over Nightflier's sensitive new wings. Then, with a wild gasp, Nightflier leaned up, blue optics flaring wide.

"We have to go flying!"

He scrambled down from his father's arms, bolting across the room with a thrilled yip as he raided the medical area for his armor, hurriedly clipping it on as Ultra Magnus finally spoke up, "Nightfall, please, exercise a little restraint—"

"Restraint!" Nightflier whirled with an unrestrained laugh, grinning and wagging his finger. "Magnus, you most certainly aren't going to put a damper on my happiness, got it? Let's just cut loose for this once! Slot, we're in need of some good news after everything that's happened!" He turned back, grabbing his chassis plate and locking it on but as he did he heard Ratchet suddenly say, "Nightfall, wait—Wait, stop a second."

Of course, Nightflier didn't until he felt Ratchet's hands grab his wings and bark, "Hold still!" Giddy with excitement, Nightflier tried to hold still, failing miserably as his peds shuffled restlessly. Ratchet gaped. "By the All Spark . . . Nightfall, you're healed!"

"I know!" he exclaimed, a bright grin covering his face.

"No, no—I mean, you're HEALED! Everything!"

Finally, Nightflier turned around to face him, his wing clipping Ratchet's mouth on the way around. The medic grumbled, but Nightflier missed it, optics popping wide. "Wait—What?"

"Hold still!" Ratchet growled at him again, turning him almost roughly back around as he inspected what the Forge had done. He passed a hand down the center of Nightflier's back, causing a small shiver to tremble through the Prime—so used to living all his life with the burns that had matted over his back, he had never really been able to feel a gentle touch. He felt hyper sensitive. "Nightfall, the burns—they're gone. And your protoform—" and he pressed two fingers pointedly against the area of his back that had had the protoform cut out.

It took Nightflier a moment to comprehend it, and then, he lit up like a Christmas tree. "By the Celestial Spires—I'm healed? Primus, Ratchet, it's a miracle!" and Nightflier latched a tight hug around Ratchet's waist too. The medic hesitated a moment, unsure if he should touch him, but then, Nightflier had let go and was rapidly putting his armor on, so giddy he almost couldn't see straight.

"Let's fly!" he burst excitedly to his father, taking his hand and pulling him along. With him, he grabbed Nightstalker's wrist, dragging them along in excitement, exclaiming, "Come on, come on! Let's fly!" With a final, excited crow, Nightflier couldn't contain himself any longer, and despite Ultra Magnus shouting something after him, Nightflier bolted from the hangar, transformed for the first time in weeks, and took off with a loud kick of his thrusters.

He yelled at the top of his vocalizer, soaring up into the sky as high as a kite, and then, he remembered—his pals! They wanted to see him transform! Banking around sharply and spying the first group of humans running outside of the base, Nightflier transformed and landed directly in front of them, sending them shouting and some literally falling on their butts in shock. Realizing they weren't his human buddies, Nightflier exploded, "Where's Boobie? And Timber and D.O.A. and Clothesline and all of them?" He wasn't going to wait for an answer, but someone frantically pointed to hangar B, so Nightflier bolted across the way, shouting out, "Double Down! Angel! You guys won't believe it! I've got my wings back! I've got my—YAAHG!"

With an un-Prime-like squawk, Nightflier tried to run through the door of the hangar just as one of the military vehicles was trying to leave, resulting in a catastrophe of limbs flailing and face planting into the floor. The SUV merely found its front clipped by Nightflier's ped before it swerved out and went on its merry way.

Still, clumsy when he was excited or not, it didn't deter Nightflier as he jumped back up to his peds, exploding, "Guys! Guys, look at this! Look! My wings! I've got my wings!"

A general cheer and whistle cut through the shocked hangar of humans, and Nightflier grinned at his set of friends as he wiggled his wings in a show, letting them see him in his prime. "Come on! Come on, get out here, you've gotta see me transform!"

He bolted out again, waiting impatiently as his friends hurried out, and Nightflier eagerly jumped, transforming, letting each part morph into the correct position—as slow as he could so they could get a good look—before catching himself with his thrusters. Another roar went up, and he couldn't understand their words since they overlapped, but he laughed warmly, swirling around in a circle before transforming and landing on his peds again.

"I've got my wings back!" he shouted again at the top of his lungs, as if the entire world didn't know it with how many times he had already said it. Then, spying his family, he burst, "Wait here!" and he ran over to the only other Autobot seekers, grabbing their hands and tugging on them until they followed him over to the nine Autobots who gaped up at Dreadwing. "You guys, this is my sister," and he pointed to Nightstalker with a grin, "and this is my father," and he jerked his thumb to his dad. Then, as an afterthought, added, "Oh! Nightstalker and Dreadwing."

Prophet dug a hand into his red hair as he stared up. "You weren't kidding when you said you were one of the smallest," he finally managed.

D.O.A. smiled, saying, "It's good to finally meet the family he's talked so fondly about," and the comment made Nightstalker blush ridiculously.

Double Down grinned, taking in Nightstalker's new colors with interest. "Well, I have to say, the silver looks good on you!" He grinned. "It's a big flip from the black I saw the other night—!"

The light blush became an infuriated flush. She stomped her foot down near him, making the Spanish man fall into giddy laughter as he collapsed away from her. "I'll still make good on my threat," she threatened lightly, orange optics narrowing.

Angel laughed and elbowed Double Down. "I'd stay out of her private business if I were you!" he snorted on a grin. "You might find yourself missing something important!"

Nightflier grinned, throwing an arm around his sister. "That's right! Trust me, mess with her, and she'll give you what for!" And then, he let out a half-heartedly frustrated shout, exploding, "What are we still doing on the ground? Let's fly!" and he ran off, did another somersault, and took off into the air.

Nightstalker grinned and was quick to follow with her own excited catcall. Dreadwing's peds stayed on the ground, and the great seeker looked up in the sky, following their movements as they chased each other about.

"Why the long face?"

Dreadwing looked down to Casino, and the young woman shrugged, rolling her dice restlessly in her fingers. "Go fly with them."

He pressed his lips together, and he glanced back up to the small seekers above before looking down on the small human. "My first flight when freed from the gladiator pits was supposed to be with my spark mate," he finally rumbled truthfully. Several shocked expressions covered the humans' faces realizing that even alien robots had gladiator games—much less, he was a survivor. "My first flight was with Megatron, the rebellion leader. I broke my promise." He paused, throat working as he looked up on Nightflier and Nightstalker laughing above. She reminded him so much of Ampere it hurt.

"But . . . perhaps . . ." His blue optics slowly softened as he watched them above, feeling another tug in his spark from Nightflier for him to fly with them. "I could fly with her children . . . regardless of differing fathers."

A quiet ripple of amazement trickled through the humans. "Nightstalker isn't yours?" Clothesline finally asked, shifting uncomfortably at the familiar scenario he had lived through.

Dreadwing's blue optics didn't falter from the children above. "Not by energon," he murmured. His spark moved in a way he had never felt for Nightstalker before. "Not by energon," he repeated softly again, but for the first time in a long time, the edge of Dreadwing's lip curled up.

With two long strides, Dreadwing took a great leap and transformed, engines kicking heavily as he chased Nightflier and Nightstalker across the skies.

* * *

><p>They played for most of the day. The happiest Nightflier had been in a long time. But all good things must come to an end, they say—right? Well, it did. Nightflier knew they couldn't play around all day. His Prime duties came back to him, and he knew they couldn't burn all their energon on a fun flight when they had so little to spare. But that didn't keep him from enjoying his day.<p>

The Decepticons were quiet now. After collecting the Predacon bones, they had gone almost eerily quiet, so the bots did a couple scouting missions—Nightflier included, just to stretch his new wings some more—until he hung out with his family more. He told Dreadwing and Nightstalker of stories of his Protectobot team, what they were like, what not to do with Blades when she met him, about his pet driller Minitron, the whole shebang. He even detailed some of his craziest pranks and got some giggles from his sister.

They stargazed at night until Nightflier and Nightstalker had exhausted themselves and fallen asleep. It left Dreadwing awake, Nightflier curled up in the crook of his left arm and Nightstalker curled up in the crook of his right arm.

Holding the children of Ampere in his arms, Dreadwing felt his spark hurting. Only . . . it was a good hurt. It took him a moment to realize it, but he thought, perhaps it was a healing hurt. Out in the solace of the night, Dreadwing let his processor roam over the years, what he had done, what he hadn't, what he had done wrong, what he had done right. The bad outweighed the good, and though he was guilty over that, Nightflier had found it in him to forgive him.

He stroked one of Nightflier's wings tenderly. The sensitive new wings twitched beneath his touch in his recharge, and Dreadwing's spark softened. He pressed his helm to his. His son was finally whole again.

Then, he paused, feeling Nightstalker shift on his other side. His solid blue optics blinked over at her, and he stroked one of her wings too. She puffed a small sigh, curling closer.

No. Perhaps Nightflier was finally whole in the physical sense, but . . . He was still waiting on Nightstalker. Still waiting for his sister to come home.

And it was here, in the solace of the night that Dreadwing found the broken pieces of himself starting to piece together. He tightened his arms, holding the children of his spark mate close, and he vented softly, pressing his helm to theirs. Regardless of fathers . . . they were his. They were his children. By energon or not.

He shuddered another uneven vent before looking up to the stars. He had never been privy to see the stars as a gladiator. He had lived underground for most of his life, locked in a tomb of gladiatorial battles, never to see the sun—the moon. His spark melted. Indeed, it was silver.

"This is what you wanted, right?" he whispered softly to her. The moon didn't respond, but it glowed in the night, giving light where none was. "Our children . . . have grown into fine adults. And we are here. Together. And I'm not going to lose them the way I did you. I promise."

Soft ped steps stopped near him. Dreadwing looked over, seeing Ratchet standing in the doorway. The medic's optics took him and his children in, and finally, he said quietly, "I was going to take Nightstalker to her recharge berth."

Dreadwing nodded and stood with both small seekers clutched to his chassis. "I will take her," he told the medic. Ratchet didn't argue, but he noticed the way he lingered in the doorway. Dreadwing turned, looking at him again, and his optics shuttered. "I know what she means to you," he murmured.

"Do you?" Ratchet replied coolly. He wasn't sure if he was jealous and territorial yet, or if he was happy Dreadwing was finally putting aside his prejudice against Nightstalker.

He nodded his regal helm down to the medic. "I do, because I feel the same." Ratchet waited for the rest of it, and it took Dreadwing a moment to say, "I respect your relationship to her. I will not intrude between you, but please . . . Let me be privy to my own moments with her. She is my daughter as much as she is yours."

After a moment, Ratchet nodded his helm back since Dreadwing couldn't shake his servo with his hands full. "Well said," the medic said softly, and he turned, leaving his daughter with another father.

Dreadwing made his way to the collective berth rooms as quietly as a mech his size could walk. Surprisingly, it was quite quiet, and he slipped past the recharging bots with ease. He paused near Cliffjumper, and he looked down at Nightstalker curled up to his chassis.

After a minute of silent debate, Dreadwing didn't put Nightstalker down on her own berth, but he gently eased her down with Cliffjumper. The mech stirred blearily, reaching almost blindly to her until he realized Dreadwing was handing her to him. His blue optics snapped open in shock, servos frozen on Nightstalker as he stared at Dreadwing. The previous air commander merely nodded, answering Cliffjumper's silent question.

Cliffjumper vented a small sigh of relief and thanks, nodding back, a silent promise to keep her safe. He bunched Nightstalker up to his chassis protectively, spark hammering in his chassis as he realized Dreadwing had just given her away to him. He trusted him with his step daughter. Trust him to love her.

Dreadwing settled on his own berth with Nightflier, letting the Prime sprawl over his chassis comfortably. He kept a servo on his back to minimize Nightflier's tossing and turning so he didn't roll over and fall to the floor. Then, he shuttered his optics and fell into a recharge also.

It took Cliffjumper a little while before he couldn't keep his mouth shut anymore. He gently shook Nightstalker's shoulder to wake her, whispering, "Hey, Nights?"

Her orange optics took a moment to flicker on. "Yeah?"

He jerked his head vaguely outside. "Can I talk to you?"

She took a big vent, expelling a huge gust of air before saying quietly, "Sure."

A relieved smile touched his face. "Thanks." So he pulled her to her peds, took her hand, and he led her outside into the night, avoiding the humans with night shift as he took her out so they could overlook the sand dunes rolling in the soft breeze and lean again hangar C. He sat down, pulling her down into his lap, and he sighed, wondering how to breach the subject with her.

Nightstalker poked his stomach when he failed to say anything at first. "Earth to Cliffjumper," she teased him softly. His worried spark settled a little at her smile. "What's up?"

Cliffjumper vented again, and he took both of her hands in his. "Nightstalker, I want to talk to you about something very personal, all right?"

She nodded. "Okay. What is it?"

His servos tightened on hers. He kept his optics level with hers. "Nightstalker . . . Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be bonded to me?"

He felt her physically still, so he rapidly backpedaled so he wouldn't scare her. "I'm not saying we'd have to right now, or anytime soon for that matter," he stumbled out quickly. "I mean, I'm waiting to see how you'll be able to handle it, I know I have to go by your pace, I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the option, but I mean—I know if you're not willing to bond with your brother yet you won't for me, I just wanted to let you know that I'd love nothing more in the world than to be able to bond with you."

Cliffjumper blushed a little, realizing he was rambling again, and Nightstalker dropped her optics down. He felt her tug, trying to take her servos from his. "You don't want to bond with me," she reprimanded him softly.

"Yes I do."

"No, you don't," she snapped a little stronger than before. "I'm—I'm—You don't want to bond with me. You don't know everything I've . . ."

He tugged back on her hands, pulling them close to his chassis. "Now, don't go trying to use that excuse on me," he chided her with a gentle tease, smiling at her. He kissed the side of her helm though she tried to avoid it. "I've experienced the torture. I've . . . seen what you want to hide most. Nightstalker—Nights, Nights look at me." He reached over, tilting her chin up when she wanted to avoid his optics. "I've seen the very best and the very worst of you already. I know exactly who I am inviting into my spark, and she's a femme I love with every ounce of my soul. For better or for worse, I am ready to take you as my own and finally prove to you that yes, love IS unconditional."

He bunched her up close when he felt her start to cry a little. He kissed the top of her helm, kneading between her wings and wiping the tears away. "Shush now, you know I don't do this tears business . . . And really. Take your time. I know you're not ready yet, I just . . . Wanted to make sure you knew exactly how much I loved you so you wouldn't be afraid to ask when you do become ready. All right?"

Nightstalker nodded into his neck, and he felt her claws dig into his chassis. "All right," she finally rasped back.

He smiled at her. "Good!" Then, he settled her down on his lap, saying, "Want to star gaze? That'd be pretty romantic, just us two, but I didn't see Ratchet in his berth, so he's probably pulling a late nighter . . . Hopefully he doesn't catch us out here all alone or else I'm going to have a nasty wrench welt on the side of my head. He can get really mean with those things! It's worse when it comes to you. I've never seen a mech so jealous before . . . !"

Nightstalker cuddled back into his chest as he prattled on, completely taking the romantic part out of star gazing with his endless talking. But she liked it this way. His patience; his strong arms; the warmth of his spark; the non-stop flap of his mouth. They were all things she loved about him, and though she knew she wasn't ready yet . . . she was glad he had said something. It comforted her to know he was always going to be there for her. Even with all his chatter that killed a romantic vibe.

But she wouldn't have it any other way.


	62. Fall

**Author's Note:**

**BIG LONG BEAUTIFUL CHAPTER FULL OF GLORIOUS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. *cries***

**On the other hand, hello! I hope you guys continue to like how Fraternizing moves along! Enjoy this chapter as much as I did! 3**

* * *

><p>"Hey, Raf, Bee. How are you guys doing?"<p>

Bumblebee chirped happily to see her, leaning over to rub his elbow on the top of her helm as he continued to race hard against Raf, who's skills as a gamer kept growing. Still, Raf had the good decency to pause the game, and he turned around on the couch to smile at Nightstalker.

"Hi!" he said brightly, and Nightstalker felt her spark squeeze a little guiltily. Bumblebee even swept her up in a brief, tight hug now that the game was paused, saying, *Hi, Nights! How are you doing?*

"I'm good," she said back with a little grin. "But you still didn't answer MY question."

Bumblebee and Raf both blushed a little, saying at the same time, "Oh, we're fine," which made Nightstalker's smile tip up a little more. Raf pushed his glasses back up on his nose when they slipped. "You seem to be doing a lot better," Raf said.

Genuinely surprised, Nightstalker blinked surprised brows at him. "What?"

Her confusion made him blush a little brighter. "Well, I mean . . ." He tapped his toes together and dipped his head before peeking up at her. "I mean, since whatever happened . . . and since you're dating Cliffjumper, you seem to be doing a lot better. You're a lot calmer. You don't have so many mood swings anymore."

Bumblebee whirred in agreement, and Nightstalker found herself flushing a bit hotter than Raf was. "Oh, well um . . . I—I don't know how much that has to do with Cliffjumper," she finally stammered. "R-Ratchet's been diluting my energon with medication to help me stop being so bipolar, so . . ."

Bumblebee elbowed her gently, ducking his helm and whispering, *I don't know, I think I'd give Cliffjumper SOME of the credit . . .*

Nightstalker pursed her lips, and she swatted at him lightly before admitting, "I didn't come over here to gossip about me, I came to talk to you guys. How are you?"

Raf smiled. "We're pretty good," he said. "Aren't we, Bee?" and Bumblebee gave an acknowledging chirp.

Nightstalker smiled too, but she blushed a little. "Well, I mean . . . I just feel like I haven't been spending a lot of time with you guys anymore, especially now that Fli-Ni's here, and I just . . ." She cringed a little. "Wanted to make sure it didn't seem like I was putting you on the back burner?"

Bumblebee blinked, and then, he laughed, scooping her up in a hug before laughing, *Are you kidding me, Nights? We're fine! Seriously! We knew you were going to be excited to be with Fli-Ni again, and besides, we've been a bit busy lately anyways.*

She bit her lip and glanced dubiously at them both. "Are you sure?" she asked worriedly. "I mean—Raf, I've barely let myself talk to you lately. I just wanted to make sure I haven't hurt any feelings or made you feel left out."

"It's fine, Nights," Raf said with a precious little smile. "I'm okay."

Nightstalker felt her lips screw up. "Well, you're the one I worried about more. You've kinda faded into the background like you do at home."

Raf shrugged, looking out among all the bots. "I kind of like it like this," Raf said conversationally. "I mean, sure it's crowded and I'm a little overlooked like it is in my family, but . . . That just makes it feel all the more like a second home to me. Besides, Bee's here to listen to me if I ever want to talk, so I'm not worried."

Nightstalker tried to fight the smile for a second before she grinned and tickled him into the couch. Raf squealed and laughed, kicking at her hands as she growled, "Good! I can't have my two favorites feeling unloved, can I?" Nightstalker shrieked briefly when Bumblebee hoisted her up, sparing Raf of the tickle onslaught, and Bumblebee suddenly gasped.

*Nights! You should play some rounds with us!*

She laughed, shaking her head. "Me? Play with YOU guys? Not unless I just want to lose!"

Raf grinned, handing the controller her way. "Aw, we'll take it easy on you! C'mon, please?"

Nightstalker put her hands on her hips and narrowed her optics as she looked down on the human, and after a moment of indecision, stated, "All right." She snatched up the controller and pointed a finger at him. "But ONLY because I like your puppy dog eyes!"

Giggling with laughter, Nightstalker began a round of gaming with Raf and Bumblebee, having some quality time with them that she missed so much. For the most part, the day had been light. Dreadwing had inspected an old mine the other day and returned with a few leftover scrapings of energon for them to process, bandaging their low reserves for another precious few days. Ratchet was again deep in his Synthen formula, Bulkhead and Wheeljack were letting out restless energy by playing a game of lob, and most of the latter groups were chit chatting away. Even Ultra Magnus, buried in paperwork, wasn't too perturbed by the mild fun happening, but whether that came from a subtle poke by their Prime, no one would know. The base was actually quite quiet, but all activity stilled by one statement:

"I am so tired of this fraggin' war."

The bots looked up to Nightflier when he spontaneously said that. The Prime was sitting crisscross on the floor, jiggling his knees, helm dipped in thought. The lob ball wasn't thrown anymore—faces turned towards the small seeker, and Ultra Magnus looked up from his paperwork.

Finally, more matter-of-fact than before, he said, "I am so tired of this fraggin' war."

Ratchet was the first to turn from the computers of the new silo and say, "Aren't we all?"

Nightflier shrugged. "Yeah." He still didn't look up, just brooded with his helm down, knees bouncing restlessly. "I mean, I was born right before the war. Great. So my father leaves for the war, and so does my sister's father, and mom dies. I grow up on the streets because people are scared to even take in a sparkling at this time because they can feel the war was brewing. Nightstalker too," and he gave a flick of his hand towards his sister. "So we're a couple kids, and the planet's at war. We're playing HIDE AND SEEK and all the sudden the war's on us, everything's blowing up and getting destroyed, everyone's getting shot apart and dying, the most vivid memory we've got." He paused again, taking a cycle.

His shoulder jutted with another shrug. "Okay, so great. I'm blown apart, but luckily put together by a friendly Autobot while my sister unluckily gets the 'Cons. Separated from my baby sister. I think she's dead, so naturally I don't want to get better, but these bots that took me in are good bots and with a bond to a new brother, I stick it through. And what am I forced to become? A soldier."

Nightfall stopped again, helm dipped low until his chin almost touched his chest he was thinking so hard. "Again—this is just great. I'm just a kid, but I'm getting trained up immediately to learn how to fight and kill instead of playing around, goofing off, and getting in typical youngling trouble. At this point in my life, I don't even KNOW what I'm fighting for, I'm just fighting. By the time I learn what the war was started for, it seems so far in the past that it doesn't even exist anymore and it's more like we're just fighting to keep fighting. I lose faith. I go through the motions. I kill to kill, I do the mission to complete the mission, and I don't even have a cause anymore. My life was full of war and I didn't have a say in it.

"And then, Cybertron falls dark, everyone evacuates, and I would have turned Neutral and fled too if not for my teammates. So I stick around, scavenging for survival on a bleak Cybertron that was dead everywhere I went and reminded me again and again, no matter where I looked, that my race was going to kill itself into extinction." Nightfall's brows pinched. "And then, by a freak accident of nature, something these cute little Prime's like to call "fate," I'm tossed onto Earth through a space bridge and in a whole new world lush with life. And then, Optimus Prime dies and suddenly I'M the one the Matrix decides to glow for, and BAM! I'm Prime. Tiny, confused, unworthy, clueless little crippled ol' me became Prime. And all of the sudden I'm leading the war resistance of a war I never wanted in the first place, always hated, and didn't know how to lead."

Nightflier snorted. "Still wonder what that dumb ol' Matrix was thinking of when it made ME Prime. Pit, might as well have picked Bumblebee. He could have been a better Prime than me." He paused. "So my entire life has revolved around the events of the war and dictated me to become nothing but a killing soldier as the Autobots and Decepticons hack each other apart into extinction. In other words: I am TIRED of this fraggin' war."

He looked up at them then, seeing all the bots looking at him warily, not sure what to think of him in his current state. Ratchet was the first to say hesitatingly, "Nightfall . . . You're not seriously considering surrendering to the Decepticons, are you?"

He wrinkled his nose and shook his helm. "Nah. I know better. But still. Cybertron's dead, and so far we haven't found a way to revive it. Poisoned with dark energon by Megatron, but gutted to death by Optimus when he ejected the All Spark." Nightflier's brow suddenly pinched. He looked incredulously at Ratchet. "Do you think . . . Optimus killed Cybertron. Megatron forced his hand, but Optimus killed Cybertron. TWICE. First with the All Spark and again with the Omega Lock." Nightflier shook his head. "Sick, that the almighty vessel of Primus was the one to kill him."

Nightflier shook himself, letting those dark thoughts fall away. "You see? That's what I've got to think about when I'm running around trying to be Prime." He looked up with wide, questioning optics to Ultra Magnus. "Right?" The commander's brows were pinched as he digested what Nightflier had spilled, but he nodded confirmation, amazed that his thinking had changed so drastically. And impressed by his thinking. So, Nightflier continued, "And all I can think is that we've somehow GOT to come to some sort of an accord with all of this. We need to find peace before we kill each other into extinction."

After a moment of silence, Nightflier jumped to his peds and pushed past Ratchet. "Let me use this for a second." The medic backed off, letting his Prime use the computer. After a second, Nightflier began to type, and he spoke what he typed out loud.

"Dear Megatron," he started casually. His helm tipped in thought. "Nightfall Prime here. Don't know when the last time you looked up and around was, but if you check, there's only ten Autobots left and five Decepticons plus a slew of drones you've made. Unless some others are floating around out in space, we've almost managed to kill each other into extinction."

Nightflier tapped a ped, pausing in his typing. "So my proposition is this: let's get together in a nice pretty field with some high grade and see if we can talk out how to end the war without any more battles. Because, quite frankly, I just need a beer."

Without preamble, Nightflier punched the send button. Ratchet sputtered in complete horror for a moment before choking out,

"You . . . did NOT . . . just . . ."

Nightflier shrugged with a cheeky little grin. He hoisted himself up and sat on the computer. "And why the frag not? When was the last time we tried to end this war instead of just battling like mindless machines?"

"Get—Get off of my computer!"

Without much care, Nightflier hopped off and smirked. "Seriously, Ratch. The worst he can do is refuse or not even respond. Aren't YOU tired of the war?"

Ratchet sputtered. "W-Well, yes, but—You could have at LEAST done that with a little more class—!"

"The doctor is right," Ultra Magnus suddenly cut in, and he took several steps forward to stand in front of Nightflier. "Regardless, that should have been a formal invitation, not a . . . tawdry child's note."

Nightflier hiked a brow up. "Please, Ultra Magnus. This is a former gladiator of Kaon. If there's a drink involved, he's not going to refuse."

Ultra Magnus put his servos on his hips, and one of his fingers began to tap in irritation. "Sir, I highly doubt Megatron will accept your invitation. He is beyond the point of negotiating, and has been for over a millennia."

"Well, that's because he was talking to Optimus," Nightflier told him. He shrugged a shoulder. "Besides, you know he's going to want to meet his new adversary. I'm sure he's going to accept."

"I cannot hold your same beliefs," Ultra Magnus stressed, lips pressing together. "Megatron has never—"

A beep at the computer interrupted him. Nightflier turned around, looked, and then sent Ultra Magnus a pointed glance.

"Megatron."

When the commander just blinked, Nightflier looked back at the computer and opened the message, reading it out loud. "Your proposition is amusing, Nightfall. Provide the coordinates and I will provide the high grade. I will bring Soundwave to delineate with you." A beat of silence. Then a cocky grin and wink at Ultra Magnus.

"Well, I'd bring you with me, but you'd never drink the high grade!"

Ratchet just gaped, unable to wrap his processor around the concept that Nightflier had so easily garnered Megatron's attention, his time, a MEETING with him, something that hadn't been done for millennia. Nightflier turned and looked at each Autobot in consideration.

He gave Nightstalker a look. "Don't even give me that look," he teased her. "There's no way I'm letting you have any high grade!"

She blinked as if coming out of a stupor, and her mouth worked for a second before she managed blankly, "I've had plenty of it before."

Cliffjumper took her hand at the same time Bumblebee took her opposite hand, squeezing in reassurance at her shell-shocked reaction. She froze up at even the mention of his name.

Nightflier pointed his finger and shook his head at both Bumblebee and Smokescreen. "No and no, too young."

Smokescreen groaned loudly, and Nightflier just shook his head before he smiled sweetly at Arcee. "Aw. No. You won't drink, and you've got too hot a head."

She scoffed and didn't say anything to him. Nightflier did some tiny skips to the side, clasping his hands behind his back as he mused to the rest of them, "No, no, no, and," he widened his optics at Dreadwing, "NO, no, so that leaves . . . " And he came to stand in front of Bulkhead. The bot shrank.

Nightflier grinned and jumped forward, spreading his hands. "Bulkhead! My man!"

"BULKHEAD?" Ratchet scoffed loudly behind him. "Nightfall, please, you can't be SERIOUS."

"Totally serious!" Nightflier said as chipper as he felt.

Bulkhead shrank, lifting his hands in surrender. "Uh, Nightfall, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean . . . Shouldn't someone more qualified be with you?"

"Well who's more qualified than you?" Nightfall said in mock confusion. He crossed his arms, tilting his head as he pretended to think hard. "Well, considering you're one of my bots, you're perfect for the job. You keep a level-head the best, and you'd be willing the drink the high grade, and I know you hold it well," and he gave a grin and suggestive pat to his stomach. "C'mon, Bulk, please?"

"I do not believe that will be necessary, sir," Ultra Magnus cut in strictly. Nightflier looked up at the mech as he managed tightly, "I will be the one to go. Soundwave will not drink the high grade either, so we will at least have one sober mech on both sides."

Nightflier grinned. "All right. Let's go then!"

He started to reach to the computer to insert a set of coordinates for Megatron to follow, but Ratchet suddenly grabbed his wrist, all but yanking him away from the computer as he snapped, "You can't go!"

Nightflier wrest his servo away before giving Ratchet a look. "I can't? Why."

It took all of the medic's self-control not to look at Nightstalker. But, he visibly reeled back like someone had slapped him, and his jaw dropped open without words to back up his anger. Finally, his mouth shut with a clack before he managed, "Nightfall, respectfully, you do not KNOW all the horrors Megatron has done over the years. You have fought on a far outpost while mechs like myself and Ultra Magnus have been in the thick of it, the front lines, and we've seen his atrocities first hand. Mechs have died under my care after the things Megatron inflicted on them!"

Nightflier frowned. "Sounds to me like it's a personal vendetta."

Something in the medic's face flinched before he cast an angry arm out to the rest of the bots. "It IS personal," he admitted tightly. "It's personal to ALL of us! Not just me! And if you had any good sense, it would be personal for you too."

The young Prime pressed his lips together, hearing Ratchet's words, but not understanding them. "And if I had any good sense, I'd remember I'm a Prime," he stated. An almost stricken look crossed Ratchet's features before his expression shuttered. "And as a Prime," Nightflier said, "my number one job isn't to pursue vendettas—the anger clouds your judgment. My number one job is to end this war, and this meeting with Megatron may very well put us on that path if we can come to some sort of accord. Because if you want to know my opinion?" Nightflier bit his lip hard as he looked up on the whipped medic. Finally, he muttered, "If you want to know my opinion, this war was between Optimus and Megatron. It was their fight and betrayal, and each had their own vendetta against the other. And now with Optimus gone, quite frankly, I think we can persuade Megatron towards a peaceful end now that he's settled that vendetta."

There it was. His hard truth. Something he had debated and stressed over and hated himself for believing, but couldn't help but believe. Nightflier shook his head and let his wings dip. "I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. But right now, I'm going to try whatever I can to end this war, and diplomacy is one way."

With that, he brushed by Ratchet and put the coordinates into the computer, sending them back to Megatron. Then, he implanted them into the ground bridge and opened it up, turning to walk out with Ultra Magnus.  
>Ratchet glanced fiercely across the base to Nightstalker, seeking her permission, but she shook her head rapidly, almost violently side to side, trembling. Nightflier glanced up at Ultra Magnus before the ground bridge, searching for his approval of his latest actions and words, and after a moment, the mech laid a hand on his shoulder.<p>

"Trust in your own decisions."

Ah, slot, that was hard to ask of him. Instead of dwelling on it, Nightflier just nodded his head and began to walk through the bridge. At the last second, he glanced back, and he had enough time to blink at Nightstalker who was clearly distressed, and get confused just as his peds hit grass.

It didn't take long for Megatron and Soundwave to show. It was barely minutes later that another ground bridge opened, and out came both Megatron and Soundwave, each carrying high grade for everyone. Ultra Magnus stilled beside him, and Nightflier squared his shoulders, taking to spark the warning his father sent him to be careful. Megatron's blood red optics locked onto Nightflier, and myriad of emotions chased themselves behind his gaze.

Then, he began to laugh.

Nightflier huffed a little under his breath when the warlord got a good look at his "worthy" new adversary of a Prime, and he felt Ultra Magnus stiffen even more, taking insult for his Prime. Nightflier just discreetly waved a small servo, letting the commander know not to mention it. If he was in Megatron's position, well, he'd probably laugh if his great new enemy was half his size.

After a few seconds of laughter, Megatron beamed a grin at him that he wasn't sure how to take. "So YOU are Optimus's chosen successor?"

Nightflier gave a rather sheepish grin with a shrug. "Yes, sir. And let me guess: you thought I'd be taller?" When Megatron's smirk deepened a fraction, so did Nightflier's. "Yeah, I thought I was gonna be taller too."

Megatron chuckled once more, and Nightflier felt Ultra Magnus shifting again, this time a little uncomfortable at how easily they seemed to be getting along. "Indulge me in a question," Megatron drawled to him. "You bear a striking resemblance to my former torturer and former second in command. Before you became Prime, your name didn't happen to be Nightflier, now would it?"

He nodded again. "Yes, sir."

The warlord's smirk darkened to an almost eerie degree. "Oh what delicious irony . . ." Instead of pursuing the point, Megatron proffered one of the energon cubes he held. "Have a drink?"

Nightflier smiled. "It would be my pleasure." As he took the energon cube, Nightflier plopped down comfortably in the grass of the plains they met in, taking a great deal of pleasure in the breeze. Megatron hiked a brow at him, but obligingly sat across from him, the sun glinting off his armor. He stretched a leg before crooking it and he propped up his other leg, leaning an elbow on it; Soundwave seated himself after setting the last two cubes of energon within reach of the two leaders. After a tense moment, Ultra Magnus finally, reluctantly sat.

Nightflier took a sip of the high grade, and his brow rose. "Whoa," he said in appreciation. "This is good!"

Megatron grinned, bearing shark-like teeth. "I am glad you approve. Only the best of the best comes from my own stash."

His blue optics popped before he could stop it. "Oh. Then I suppose I'm a privileged mech."

"That you are."

They lapsed back into a brief silence as Nightflier took another sip of the delightfully sweet energon that had a tangy aftertaste. Who knew Megatron would have had a sweet tooth? It buzzed in his olfactory systems, giving him a prickle of warmth, enough to get tipsy by drinking the stuff, but not enough to get slagged on—a good combo for today.

Nightflier gave a weak laugh as he looked down at his reflection in the high grade. "If you want to know something REALLY ironic," he said to Megatron, "the irony would be me."

"I never said it was not," Megatron replied.

He shook his head. "No, I mean . . ." and he finally blurted, "It's an honor to meet you."

Ultra Magnus nearly twisted an axel on the spot before staring incredulously at his Prime. That confession made Megatron laugh again, and he finally managed, "You are certainly full of surprises, Nightfall!"

He grinned a little sheepishly, swirling his high grade. "Well, you see, I grew up in Kaon. And when my sister and I were really little, we'd sneak off and go to the gladiatorial games." He looked up to Megatron. "We were hoping to see you. Well, at least, _I _was. At first I didn't take Nights because she was too young, and then when I did she was too young to really understand . . . But I was always star struck by your teachings. Your beliefs. And watching you decimate someone in the field of battle was always a treat." He winced a little and fluttered his wings. "Except when you're on the receiving end of your might."

Megatron gave an amused chuckle. "You do look much better than from the last time I left you."

He gave a little shrug. "The Forge is magic," he said offhandedly. "So, basically, the irony comes in like this—I was always convinced I was going to be a Decepticon."

Ultra Magnus just . . . stared. He was so shocked he was as silent as Soundwave. Megatron just took another deep drink of the high grade, amused and interested at the Prime's story. "See, when I was little," Nightflier said, leaning forward, "you were my idol. I wanted to be just like you, strong, powerful, good at speeches, and tall." He flushed a little with an embarrassed grin. "As you can see, I didn't get any of that."

Nightflier paused a second to take a drink and wet his lips again. "On top of that, when you started freeing the gladiators and recruiting them to your cause, Dad and Uncle Skyquake were some of the ones that went with you, so I didn't really have much of a father figure, much less a strong mech figure in my life to look up to—and again, I looked up to you all the more for that.

"And they may have just been the lofty views of a child, but I was fully convinced that I was going to be a Decepticon." Nightflier smirked ruefully, wings perking up as he soaked in a wonderful breeze. "I hated the Autobots, I was going to be the best warrior you had, and I was going to kill so many Autobots and do so many great things for the great Decepticon cause that I'd catch even YOUR optic." He snorted, taking another sip of the high grade. "Silly, but nonetheless, I wanted to be a Decepticon. I always told Mom I was going to become a great Decepticon commander for her to be proud of, and the second I was old enough, I was going to throw my lot in with the 'Cons—she hated talk like that since Dad had gone to fight in the war, so I didn't talk about it much to her though I always day dreamed about it."

Nightflier paused. His optics dropped.

"And then . . . You ruined it. You ordered the execution of all femmes and sparklings."

This time, he took a big swallow of the high grade, feeling it sting his olfactory system and warm him all the way down, soothing his hurt. "But I mean—even at this point in my life, I didn't realize that it was the work of Decepticons. There was always a part of me that thought, you know, the Autobots were doing this, not the mech I'd looked up to all my life . . ." A grim smile touched Nightflier's face. "But ah, how the tables turn and truth rings. I survive the slaughter and get taken in by Autobots. And look at where I'm at now? A kid who used to believe with all his might he was a Decepticon through and through, and how he's Prime. Pure irony."

He glanced up to Megatron with a question in his optics. "Did you even consider what kind of advantage you threw away? Basically all of Kaon was loyal to you. We viewed you as our savoir, as the one who was going to deliver us from the rank low caste and grant us the freedom we believed we deserved. Then to have you turn your back and slaughter us all—thousands upon thousands of femmes and sparklings. You could have had a second army. So many children to teach to become your benevolent soldiers, and even if you didn't believe femmes could fight, they could have filled the Decepticon's always low medical staff. You threw away a great advantage. Both political and resourceful."

Megatron grumbled, assessing the smaller mech in a new light. "You portray it as a missed opportunity, but that is not so. To teach so many useless femmes and sparklings to fight or heal would have been time consuming and would have broken the Decepticon's tactical advantage to surge up and overtake at the rate we had. On top of that, we would not have had the metals and parts we salvaged and smelted from the bodies to make our weaponry and other various things." He waved an uncaring servo. "I would not go back and change it now."

Nightflier winced. He puffed out a small sigh. "Yes, I see. It's just . . . hard to see someone you looked up to fall so far." He shrugged. "Or maybe not even that. Perhaps it was Megatronus I looked up to, not Megatron."

Megatron seemed to still across from him, and after an awkward silence, Ultra Magnus finally cleared his vocalizer.

"I do believe we have strayed far off topic," he reprimanded his Prime as well as steered them towards the real reason they were there. "We—"

"Mayhap we are," Megatron cut in, "but allow us one more digression before we begin." As Nightflier took another drink of the high grade, Megatron asked, "How is your sister? Tell her she is always welcome back to my berth if she should ever change her mind about this Autobot thing."

Nightflier choked. The high grade clotted in his throat, and Nightflier choked on the clog, managing to spit it up out of his olfactory system as well as his mouth. Even after his airways were clear, he was left hacking, throat raw and nose burning from the high grade.

"What?" was finally the word he was able to strangle out of his vocalizer.

Megatron just nodded, though a flicker of delight flamed to life in the back of Megatron's optics. "I am still convinced she would make a wonderful Decepticon queen regardless of what has happened in between us."

Nightflier stared in shocked horror as he silently put together the pieces Megatron was handing him. His sister. She—When she was a Decepticon, she was a torturer, but—No, oh Primus no!

He felt his energon tanks roll uncomfortably. So THAT was why she didn't want to bond with him. Nightflier forced himself to take a steadying breath, and Ultra Magnus said pointedly to Megatron, "We will be sure to relay the message," though Nightflier heard no promise in his voice. Good. Good, he didn't—Nightstalker didn't need—oh Primus, she had been his mistress, his nymphomaniac, his own little slu—

A nervous and disgusted shiver crawled down Nightflier's back. His jaw set and he glared at Megatron. "We will not be giving her your message," he said evenly to the warlord. "She is not your call girl."

"Are you sure?" Megatron nearly purred while hiking a brow. "I do believe it is her choice whether or not to come back to me. After all, I was the constant in her life ever since she was just out of her youngling years—"

Something in Nightflier's mind wanted to snap. He had fragged his sister since she was just out her youngling years, millennia, for millennia—"Megatron," he finally managed to cut him off, "please, don't. We are here to delineate about ending this war."

Megatron gave a careless shrug and drained the rest of his own cube before he tossed the empty cube across the rolling plains, a spiky slash of dark against a homely backdrop. His red optics narrowed slightly as he assessed the Prime's reaction. "My, cutting off my idle chatter while you gave me your entire history."

"In an effort to get you to understand how much you meant to me," he snapped back before he stopped short, realizing Megatron was trying to play him. A muscle in Nightflier's cheek twitched, and he forcibly took a deep vent, trying to hold back all the emotions swirling in turmoil. So what if Megatron had taken him off guard with his sister's greatest secret. It didn't change how he loved her, and it didn't change what this meeting was about.

Or perhaps Nightflier had taken Megatron off guard with his praise of him, and so Megatron felt it right to return the favor?

"I am sorry," Nightflier finally said calmer than before. "You are right. I was the one speaking out of turn first. Sometimes I still act like a tawdry child instead of Prime, but—give me a break. I've been Prime for a couple weeks."

Megatron smirked and picked up another cube. Nightflier glanced down at his, half empty, and he took another drink to calm his buzzing nerves. "Ah, you're just like Optimus Prime," Megatron said with a graceful flick of his wrist. Nightflier froze; he wasn't trying to be like Optimus. "The first thing you must do is try to peacefully talk things out. Perhaps it is simply a Prime trait." He took another swig of his high grade. "But I must say, I am very impressed by your fortitude, youngling."

A surprised look flashed across his face before he could stop it. "My fortitude?"

It was a second after he said that that he realized—his wings.

But Megatron turned that thought on its heel with his next words.

"Yes, your fortitude," Megatron continued. "That you are willing to pursue peace even knowing what I've done to your very sister is astonishing. I doubt even Optimus would have that kind of forgiveness in him, much less her own brother."

Something cold chilled in Nightflier's gut. His servo gripped his high grade too tightly. "What?" he finally cracked from his vocalizer.

Megatron arched a brow. "Why, that you can forgive my raping your sister and still seek peace for the greater good of Cybertron. Astounding forgiveness."

It was a slow seeking missile that slowly cut through the murky waters of his mind that began to tap, tap, tap on the edge of his consciousness as he tried to encompass that word—RAPE—in his mind and fully understand what the warlord meant. That was fine, because Megatron seemed quite content to sit and sip his high grade with an almost mockingly smug look at him.

Finally, it was Ultra Magnus that stood—he nearly rocketed to his peds. "We are finished here," he stated flatly to the Decepticons, and he grabbed beneath Nightflier's pit, hauling the young Prime to his peds.

Nightflier yanked away from him with the passionate cry of, "No we're not!" He whirled on Megatron, the flame of anger burning in his optics as if his look was the hell that would consume Megatron's soul. "We're not done here!" His chassis heaved and his fingers twitched as he stared at Megatron with rising hate and horror, something breaking apart inside his spark. "What did—You—by the Pits of Kaon, if you—My sister!" Finally realizing that nothing comprehensible was coming out of his mouth, Nightflier swore fluently under his breath before snapping, "Say that again! Say it to my face! What did you do? What did you do to my sister?"

Megatron arched an amused brow, clearly unfazed by his anger. "I raped your sister," Megatron said casually, as if he was talking about his favorite color. "Within an inch of her life. In fact, I was quite surprised to see her alive at Darkmount."

Ultra Magnus clamped his hand down on Nightflier's shoulder, dragging him back and away from Megatron. "Ratchet," he ordered sternly into his comm. link, "open a ground bridge immediately."

Nightflier didn't realize he was almost hyperventilating in anger. It was pure, white hot fire blinding his optics, and he was faintly aware of the Matrix stirring in his spark, telling him to reign back his fury, revenge was not the way of a Prime, his pattern of thoughts was sinful, and he shouldn't allow his emotions to influence his choices. He had to take this chance while he had it! Put aside his anger and focus on the matter at hand and finally put an end to this war while he could! But he was swept away in the tide of hate, almost choking on the passion boiling inside him.

The ground bridge blasted open behind them, and Megatron rose from the ground fluidly. "I take it this meeting is adjourned?"

Nightflier's denta bared at his smacking tone. "I—You—Cybertron below me, if you—I'll just—And when I see you again—Argh!"

He snarled with an almost feral growl at the warlord, frustrated he couldn't get a proper and dark threat out of his mouth he was so strangled by sheer abhorrence. With a final hiss, Nightflier yanked away from Ultra Magnus's grip and stalked through the bridge, temper close to snapping.

His peds rooted to the spot as he glared at every Autobot in the room. The bridge closed behind them, and Nightflier opened his mouth—and shut it with an audible clack and grind before pinching his brow. Then, he opened his mouth and let them have it.

"And NONE of you thought to tip me off!" he shouted. Ugly rage splotched his cheeks. "None of you thought that that," and he threw his arm towards the ground bridge, "was important enough to fragging tell me about?" He could see it in their optics. They all knew. All of them. "I fragging walk out there to make nice with Megatron and none of you told me about possibly the most important bit of information I would have needed?" Not to mention, even Ultra Magnus had been in the dark about this.

He stalked forward several steps, wings perked aggressively. "None of you thought to mention, 'Oh, Nightflier, I forgot to tell you Megatron adulterated your sister—and fragging RAPED her within an inch of her life!?"

His voice rang in the silent room, and it was so quiet he heard the faint catch of her breath. He turned, and he felt that familiar cold chill dump over his spark. His wings dropped immediately, and his throat worked at the betrayed look in her optics.

He took one step towards her and stretched out his hand. "Nights . . . Nights, I—"

She turned and ran from the room so quickly he didn't have the fighting chance to catch her. "Nightstalker!" He took a stride, but he heard her transformation, and he knew without a doubt that she was gone, and there would be no catching her. However, that didn't stop Cliffjumper from running out after her, calling her name and transforming into his alt mode to try and keep up with her.

Nightflier swore fluently under his breath, gradually getting louder until he gave another yell of frustration and anger. Primus, so much anger. It coursed through him like lava, consuming him from the inside out. And those fragging incessant Primes in the Matrix trying to lecture him on controlling his temper—!

His jaw ground tightly, and he turned to Ratchet with fire in his optics. "He said he raped her within an inch of her life," he nearly hissed at the medic. He vainly took a deep vent, but his servos only shook more with the need to break something—or SOMEONE. "Exactly how close to death is that?"

Ratchet's optics shuttered. "I'm afraid I can't tell you," he said evenly, optics not wavering from Nightflier's even with the most boldfaced lie. "That information is doctor-patient confidentiality—"

"Don't give me that!" Nightflier snapped before straining in another calming breath. "You know as well as I you're lying right to my face. Now I know medics keep extensively documented details of their work and even imagery, and I'm asking you to let me see exactly what Megatron did to my sister." When Ratchet's jaw set stubbornly, Nightflier's hands curled into claws.

He was nearly going to order the medic when Ratchet finally said, "I don't see what scarring yourself with this image of her is going to do," he growled back, but he obediently turned and grabbed a datapad—but the pad was blank. Nightflier watched tensely as Ratchet jacked into the pad directly, keeping the contents of Nightstalker's files under lock and key of his very own processor than having a soft copy hidden on a computer somewhere.

Ratchet turned with the pad in hand, flicked through several things before settling on one. Shadowed optics looked up at him. "Brace yourself," Ratchet told him, and he handed him the datapad, face down so he couldn't see it. "It is disturbing on a psychological level." He hadn't let anyone see the product of what had been laid on his medical berth. Only he, and the ones who had rescued Nightstalker in the first place—Optimus, Arcee, Bumblebee, and Cliffjumper—knew the full extent of the damage that had been done. And not even in a medic's detail who took in every slash and moved body part and cut and bleed.

Nightflier took the datapad, and his blazing optics glued to the back of the screen. Did he really want to do this? Yes—he wanted to know what she had gone through. He would never know otherwise as she was set on keeping him out of her spark anyways. Not to mention, how could he possibly comfort her when he didn't know how bad it was? She would try to cushion it, say it wasn't that bad just to make him feel better . . . But by Primus, it was a morbid, sick curiosity that couldn't be sated, and the unknown haunted him—he kept thinking of horrible things that could have happened to her, and he kept thinking of the worst things that could have happened. His chassis seized at the vivid thoughts. It couldn't be that bad, could it?

It took him a moment to realize his servo was shaking. With a sharp vent, Nightflier told himself to go for broke, and he turned the datapad face up to see the picture of the full extent of Nightstalker's damage.

It was worse than anything he had ever imagined.

His energon tanks rolled. That . . . That was his sister? What was . . . left of her . . . Primus, there was so much energon spilled, she was almost more blue than she was black, and it was pooling . . . Her arms were broken, her wrists were broken, her hips were broken, everything was twisted in wrong directions, he had clawed all over her wings—A sharp gasp seized in Nightflier's vocalizer when he saw her spark in plain sight, her chassis doors ripped off and completely missing, and sweet Cybertron below, those claw marks on her spark, the wires were ripped and bleeding in a grotesque mess. Her valve was destroyed. It was like her valve was nothing but a gaping hole. It was like her innards had been churned in a mixing machine. It wasn't even like a rape, she was just an incomprehensible mass of mutilated parts—

The datapad slipped from his numb fingers. It clattered to the ground, cracking its screen, and Nightflier suddenly realized he was so sick he was gagging. With a wild lurch, Nightflier collapsed against the side of one of Ratchet's white storage bins, and he heaved violently. He purged, and the sickly contents of the high grade pooled in the floor, and his shoulders heaved with the effort.

He felt hands taking him, and he jerked wildly, forcing them off as he leapt back to his peds. There was a roaring in his audios—he couldn't hear anything above the panic that seized him. He staggered against the wall, bracing himself there for a minute as unadulterated rage seared through every wire in his body.

"I'll kill him."

He didn't realize that he had been the one to hiss that so malevolently. It sent the Primes in the Matrix into a tizzy of worry that he couldn't go out for revenge, but he ignored them completely. He shook, swearing under his breath again. "I'll kill him, I'll fragging kill him . . ."

Nightflier jolted when Ultra Magnus took a step towards the datapad, and he pointed a sharp finger at him, snapping, "You take one look at that and I will personally remove your memory chips!" Ultra Magnus's gaze shuttered at the hostile tone of his Prime, but he obediently backed up a step, frowning intensely at being kept out of the loop. Nightflier pointed to the pad. "Ratchet, delete it. Right now."

The CMO immediately knelt to do his bidding. With another dark swear, Nightflier pushed off of the wall and began to pace, restless with the need for violence that brewed up in his chassis like a black storm. It blocked out the wisdom of the Primes. Its seduction was deadly.

Nightflier's servos shook he was so worked up. Megatron had treated his sister like a whore. He had defiled her when she was just barely only enough to interface, and he had continually fragged her like he owned her and treated her like his toy. Primus, and on top of that he had the GALL to offer to take her back even after he had raped her—!?

The sound of a sword smoothly unsheathing cut open the silence. Nightflier looked up to see his father come to stand before him, sword extended in invitation. His solid blue optics flickered at his son.

"Spar with me."

Nightflier gave a rough, barking laugh. "Now?" he grumbled, voice deep and deadly. "I'm liable to pull some energon right now."

"Then so be it," Dreadwing said neutrally to him. "But you are angry—"

"Oh Megatron WISHES I was just ANGRY," Nightflier snarled, rage peaking.

Dreadwing barely blinked. "Which is why it is the perfect time to spar, to teach you to control your anger."

Nightflier held still for only a moment—then, unsheathing his blade, he turned with a shout on his father, swinging with all the force of his anger behind the blow. Lithely, Dreadwing pivoted away, and Nightflier tried to stop and turn, his blade skidding against the floor, but he felt the blunt edge of Dreadwing's sword slam heavily into his back. With a low grunt, Nightflier felt himself felled easily to the floor, and Dreadwing rested his blade against the back of his neck.

"Dead," he stated, and Nightflier felt himself flush hotly that he had been defeated so easily. Dreadwing backed away, feeling the turmoil in his son's spark, and his own father's rage combated with his. "That was a clumsy attack," he berated Nightflier as he stood, rolling his sore shoulders. Nightflier's optics brightened angrily. "Only an inexperienced cadet would attack as recklessly as that. Try again."

With a yell, Nightflier charged Dreadwing again, this time from another side, taking the time to feint once before ducking around and unleashing a sharp uppercut. Dreadwing easily anticipated his move, and he parried him. Nightflier whirled and found each of his attacks blocked no matter where he went, so he faked a bold cut and turned back with a sharp jab to his waist. Dreadwing jumped back to avoid it, and Nightflier felt his father's servo clip his jaw sharply, sending him staggering backwards. Before he could put up a defense, his legs were swiped out from beneath him, and the more skilled warrior placed the tip of his blade on his son's forehead.

"Dead," he said flatly again, and Nightflier growled at him, energon rushing fast and furious. "Your trickery is flat, predictable. Either channel the deception to confuse your enemy, or attack head on and forget the child's play."

He let him up again. With a sneer, Nightflier lashed his shield to his arm and turned it on, allowing the electrical currents to course through the weapon, heightening the playing field. Sensing the bold challenge to make this a little more than the standard spar, Dreadwing stepped into a graceful lunge, blade raised level for Nightflier's next attack.

They fought with anger—Nightflier, blind with anger, and Dreadwing, relentless with anger. Through their bond, the rage pooled and collected, overflowing with dangerous ire as they fought against each other with an edge of higher violence. First blood went to Nightflier—a shallow nick above his father's optic that bled into his optic, frustrating the mech. A staggering punch split Nightflier's lip. They steered mercifully clear of each other's wings, each seeker respecting how sensitive they were. But other than that, they were fair game to each other. The astonishingly brutal spar nearly made Ratchet step in and stop it, but there was something primal in their optics full of rage and pain that kept him at bay even as it only grew more and more ferocious.

"Dead."

"Dead."

"Dead."

A forceful tidal wave of frustration crashed down on Nightflier for the nth time as Dreadwing easily disposed of him like yesterday's trash. With his incessant beat downs also came the brutal honesty of constructive criticism.

"Your stance is wide and sloppy."

"You're attacking with your emotions—think with a clear processor, allow the rage to fuel the strength of your blows."

"Stop nursing your wounds like a child. Absorb the pain. Pay it back double."

"Take CONTROL of your anger! Don't let it rule you; tame it and use its strength against your enemy!"

Attacking again, Nightflier ignored the exhaustion of his body and the pain throbbing through his thoroughly beaten frame. His optics narrowed to slits as he combated against his father. He wasn't going to give up until he bested him once. He had something to prove now, and though his fury towards Megatron hadn't taken a backseat yet, he was determined. Damnably determined to prove his worth.

With another snarling yell, Nightflier charged, blocking Dreadwing's attacks cleanly, struggling to overcome the greater warrior's skill futilely. The dance of their blades met in the middle, clashing into each other and Nightflier ducked, avoiding an overhead slash. Ramming his shoulder forward, he slammed into Dreadwing's gut, and he whirled and slammed his shield up into his chassis.

Dreadwing grunted and flinched, backing up, but Nightflier refused to stop his charge. He blocked Dreadwing's blade with his shield and dropped when his free hand reached for him. Ducking between his legs, Nightflier slashed at his ankles, managing to cut another wire that made Dreadwing hiss and jump away, giving Nightflier breathing room. Launching back to his peds, Nightflier shouted and stabbed with his short sword, but he missed his mark when his father whirled away. With a fierce roundhouse kick, Dreadwing's nicked ped lambasted smack in Nightflier's gut, shattering the cockpit on his chassis and sending the small seeker flying with a low grunt. The doors to the hangar were slightly ajar, and it was just enough room for Nightflier to hit one door, literally taking it off the tracks before he crashed outside.

He tumbled several times until his leading arm's elbow accidentally smashed through the windshield of a military Jeep, sending small bits of glass showering down into his armor and the protoform beneath. With a gritty groan, Nightflier turned on his hands and knees, coughing on the energon he had gagged up.

The four humans in the Jeep stared in shock. The two in the front seat, Nightflier didn't know, but the two in the back seat? Prophet's jaw slacked open, causing his mouthful of sandwich to fall out and onto his lap. Angel gaped, a medic's care slowly kicking into gear as he managed to crack out, "Nightflier?"

Spitting, Nightflier ignored him, frustration and fury boiling beneath his heated complexion. Roughly wiping his busted lip with the back of his hand, Nightflier staggered back to his peds. Angel was unbuckling even as Nightflier stalked away, glassy chunks of his cockpit leaving a trail.

"Nightflier, wait! Holy hell—!"

Gritting his teeth, Nightflier stalked back into the hangar, blue optics zeroed in on his father as he searched for an opening. His right side was going to be favored a little with that costly nick to his ped. He'd use that to his advantage. And to throw his father from his train of thought, he pressed his next attack from the left.

Intercepted, Nightflier blocked the blade descending to him and knocked it out of the way with his shield. When he swung his sword, he jolted when Dreadwing's vice-like grip grabbed his wrist, stopping his attack short. Nightflier cried out when he twisted his arm, and he combated the move by jumping into the twist, letting himself flip around and his heel to come crashing down on his jaw. Dreadwing reeled back, and Nightflier ducked beneath his blade and slashed his sword in Dreadwing's hip, slicing the wires and causing the great seeker to stagger on his weak side.

In a brief clash of swords, Dreadwing's hard onslaught of attacks knocked Nightflier's sword clean from his grip. With a shout, Nightflier swore under his breath and lifted his shield, blocking several heavy-handed blows before turning and bolting towards where his blade had skidded. Dreadwing's servo clamped down on his shoulder, and Nightflier gritted his dentures, feeling himself thrown in the opposite direction. Utilizing the thrusters in his heels, Nightflier let them kick on and he used them to slow his flight until he landed with a heavy thump in the doorway in a deep lunge. Holding his shield in between him and his adversary, Nightflier bared his teeth, a trickle of energon running down his jaw.

Running forward full throttle, Nightflier set his jaw stubbornly at his father who squared off. He dove forward, rolling across the ground, and he lifted his shield, blocking Dreadwing's blade. Vaulting between his legs, he nearly felt Dreadwing's ped stamp down on the ground where he had been before. Snatching up his blade, Nightflier parried his father and made for his opposite hip. Dreadwing's hips jerked away, and Nightflier blocked his attack with his shield and forced his blade up quickly, letting the point come to rest at the heart of Dreadwing's chassis.

The vicious fighting stopped. Nightflier vented shallow and fast, fans working hard to cool his overheated body as he trembled so close to Dreadwing in a mock-death embrace. Dreadwing merely froze, weary optics looking down at his son as he waited.

It seemed to take Nightflier a moment to get his articulators to work, but he finally rasped, "Dead." It took him a moment longer to pull his blade away and step back, too astonished to actually believe he had managed to best his father in a spar. Eleven to one deaths? That was good odds, right? Ah, maybe not . . .

Dreadwing gave a slight rumble through his chassis. "Are we done here?" He blinked, reaching a hand up to scrub at the energon leaking into his optic.

After a minute of catching his breath, Nightflier finally gave an exhausted nod. "Yeah." He was tired. Primus, so tired . . . He dropped his sword on the ground, drained of his anger as the fight had fatigued him beyond much other thought than just letting himself collapse in a recharge. "We're done." He cast off his shield, letting it clatter to the ground and the electricity to cut off.

Dreadwing winced, a shoulder aching as he sheathed his blade. They stood awkwardly a moment, Nightflier shuffling his peds, and a discreet clearing of a throat brought the young Prime's attention to the door of the base. His optics blinked open at the sight of Prophet and Angel standing in the doorway, a forgotten sandwich in Prophet's hand and a crowbar in Angel's.

"So are we okay here?" Angel finally asked, blue eyes jumping in between Nightflier and Dreadwing in wary confusion. He lifted the crowbar into sight. "I don't have to use this?"

His friend's devotion made a weak smile touch Nightflier's face. "N-No," he finally managed. "We're okay. The crowbar won't be necessary."

After a moment, Angel nodded, still uncertain though he may have been. "All right." He turned to leave, glanced back one more time just to make sure, and then he grabbed Prophet's arm, dragging the stunned red head out of the door.

Nightflier vented. At least they'd have something exciting to talk about. Then, he groaned softly, feeling every synapsis in his body singing the woes of pain to him. With Dreadwing, he unbidden made his way over to the medical area. Dreadwing's limp was a little more pronounced, ankle and hip aching through his left leg, and both father and son collapsed on a medical berth, letting Ratchet mutter under his breath as he set out to fix the damage they had done to each other.

Nightflier's wings dipped. His optics dimmed as he looked at the floor. His spark hurt. "Hey . . . Dad?"

As Dreadwing was leaking energon, Ratchet attacked his wounds first, making Dreadwing wince as he clamped the bleeding wires together. He looked over. "Yes?"

Unable to help it, he couldn't stop the hurt in his voice. "Megatron isn't Megatronus, is he?"

There was a heavy, silent pause in which Nightflier was sure he could hear his own spark beating.

"No. He is not."

Of course he wasn't. Megatronus would have never done the things Megatron had done. Megatronus had been the mech he had invested his future in, the mech he had idolized for the promises he gave, freedom was the right of all Cybertronians, promising a Cybertron without the caste systems, a place with equality for the oppressed lower caste. At some point, Megatron had corrupted Megatronus. He had died at some point to become the mech he was now.

Nightflier gave a soft, bitter laugh. "It's amazing how far your heroes can fall, isn't it?"

He felt his father's servo reach over and cover his. Nightflier looked up into his blue optics. "Perhaps," he said quietly, "it's time to stop looking to your heroes and instead BE a hero."

His spark flipped a little in his chassis. His wings fluttered. His voice whispered. "You really think I could be a hero?"

Dreadwing squeezed his hand, and though his optics softened, his gaze was steady.

"You are my son. I have absolute faith in you."


	63. Sincerity

**Author's Note:**

**Hey! ^-^ Been a while, I know, but I just got through my first week of COLLEGE and hoo boy, do I have homework! Still, I somehow managed to get it all done as well as this chapter. A little short, but I think it's pretty good. Lots more relationship dynamics, and we're FINALLY getting to the plot again!**

**As for updates, unfortunately they're going to slow to combat my studying and homework. I'm wanting to at least keep a steady update for every two weeks if I can.**

**Anyways, enjoy this next chapter and show some love with some reviews! :)**

* * *

><p>Nightflier was . . . a little put off, to be honest. He was about over this cute little game Nightstalker played, and it was showing in his irritated looks, his twitching wings and peds, and his rather clipped words.<p>

It was finally Ratchet putting his foot down and telling Nightflier to DO something about it that Nightflier decided he would.

Thus, with a little help from his human friends, he was tracking Nightstalker. The base was only so big, so there were only so many places to hide, but clearly over the years she had gotten just a mite better at hiding from him. Nightflier himself wasn't much of a tracker, but he WAS stealthy. And by following in the tracks he himself would take not to get caught, he was sure to find her somewhere.

And, with a tip of D.O.A.'s hat, a jerk of Casino's thumb, or the wild flailing of Timber's arms, he had a pretty good bead on where his sister was headed.

Not to mention he may or may not have bribed—threatened—promised—guilt tripped—Cliffjumper into helping corner Nightstalker for him.

In fact . . . there she was now. Keeping a close optic on her and taking a roundabout path so she wouldn't realize he was on her tail, Nightflier ducked behind the far hangar. Listening to Cliffjumper's incessant rambling—a clue as to where they were—Nightflier waited for the right moment . . . Closer . . . Closer . . .

He pounced. Jumping out and grabbing Nightstalker before she could slip away again, he wrestled the silver seeker back that shrieked and jerked in the effort to get away from him. Clamping his hand over her mouth so her ear-splitting screams wouldn't hurt his audios so much, Nightflier snapped, "Nightstalker, stop! Stop! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it right now!"

She struggled for several moments longer before slacking almost limp with defeat, knowing she was caught. Looking towards the guilty Cliffjumper, Nightflier nodded, saying, "Thank you."

Nightstalker made an incredulous sound, hurt orange optics looking over to Cliffjumper who winced a little, muttering, "Um, I uh . . . Yeah, I guess we'll talk later, eh, Nights?"

Nightflier waited until he was out of earshot before he drew Nightstalker by her shoulders out in front of him so he could look at her. Her lips were pressed tightly together, dreading this confrontation. Her wings were perked stiffly, and Nightflier felt his compassion stirred up before anything else.

His jaw cracked open. "Nights—" He choked off short, cycled in a steadying breath, and then, pulled her close in a bone crushing hug. A small shudder passed through his frame before he could stop it, and he vented tightly, rasping, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you . . ."

Nightstalker stood stiff as a plank in his arms. Finally, she stated without inflection, "You're being stupid again. This isn't your fault."

His arms tightened. "I feel responsible."

"You couldn't have protected me if you tried."

"Then by the Pit, I would have died trying to protect you." Releasing her just enough, Nightflier pressed the front of his helm to hers, looking directly into her optics. "I want you to understand right now, that I would do anything for you, including taking your burdens. And because I haven't been there to protect you when you needed it most, I promise you right now that I will never allow anyone to hurt you ever again."

Her lips trembled. Her orange optics cast downwards.

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

"Nights—"

"Oh don't even pretend!" she snapped before she could stop herself. Shocked, Nightflier let her yank away from his grip. She glared at him. "That's a fragging stupid promise! There's no way you can protect me from everything, Nightfall, so stop trying to do unrealistic things! You're a Prime! Grow up and start acting like one!"

Nightflier flinched, reeling back at her venomous tone. She refused to look at him, and with a pang in his spark, he realized that even though she had physically shed the colors of black and orange, she hadn't fully released herself from her transgressions. It was still there. In her soul—a blaze orange of fire in her spark. She would never truly heal in some areas, and the fact that he had failed her beyond repair cut his spark deep. It made him bleed love for her. And he could only hope that one day, even if she never became whole again, she might overcome her past and live towards the future.

Wetting his lip plates, Nightflier took her hand. She fought his touch for a second, but he grabbed her servo firmly, murmured, "Come here. Sit with me." Pulling her towards the hangar wall and out of the way of any passing human vehicles, Nightflier took her into the little bit of shade the wall provided. He sat down crisscross, tugging her hand again when she refused and locked her knees. "Nightstalker. Sit with me."

It was an order. Whether as a brother or as a Prime, neither sibling was sure, but it was enough to finally get Nightstalker to sit across from him with her knees hitched up to her chin.

Nightflier's hand twitched with the effort to reach out to her, but instead, he clenched his fists and took a deep breath. "Nightstalker, I know my rank. I know my relationships. And I'm determined to handle them both maturely. I'll talk to you as a brother, but right now, I'm speaking to you as your Prime, all right?" She flinched slightly at the name of his title. "Now, I need . . . I need to know . . . everything that's happened. Not all the details, just the bare bones. Because had I know what Megatron had done to you, I would have never gone to him for peace. For the sake of the record . . ." He bit his glossia so hard he drew energon. "Megatron treated you as his call girl for almost the entire duration you were a Decepticon torturer, and he raped you."

He could only thank Primus that his voice hadn't wavered or broke when he said that. In response, she kept her optics on the ground and gave a dutiful nod.

"What made you decide to become an Autobot?"

She wet her lips nervously, and he saw her wings flutter. "Cliffjumper," she rasped softly. "I was torturing him, but . . . He gave me his name. So I rescued him."

Nightflier nodded encouragingly. "All right. Now, Ratchet mentioned you and Optimus had some sort of strife?"

Her silver shoulders scrunched up more. "Yes." For a minute, she didn't say anything more, and it almost led Nightflier to believe that he was going to have to ask about what it was when she suddenly continued. "I blamed him for killing you. He was the bot that started to move to help you and then ran when the Decepticon planted the bomb."

Nightflier gave her a small nod. "Yes, I know."

"I blamed it on him. I almost killed him for it. Then I realized the mech I needed to blame was the Decepticon planting the bomb." She gave a half shrug. "Starscream. My father by energon."

Nightflier reeled back before he could stop himself. A muscle ticked in his jaw. "He's your father?"

"No." She said it sharply, almost defensively. "Ratchet is. But . . ." Her wings drooped. "If he wanted to be, I'd let him . . ."

Cycling a steadying breath, Nightflier tried to distance his emotions from the conversation so he didn't lose his cool. Before he could say anything more, she also whispered, almost inaudibly, "He lusted after me."

Nightflier blinked wide before he could stop himself. A Prime . . . carried a sin like that? Her claws dug into her thighs. "I lusted after him."

He hesitated to ask the question, but . . . He bit the inside of his cheek. "Did you . . . ?"

"Almost."

That word stood heavily between them. Cycling in a breath, Nightflier changed the subject gently with, "So, after treason, you had to earn their trust again. How did you end up back on the Decepticon warship?"

"I went back to Megatron," she whispered shamefully. Nightstalker dropped her face into her knees, muffling her words. "I went back to him like a little whore. Ratchet and June call it Stockholm's Syndrome. Then Cliffjumper tried to rescue me, and Megatron raped me right in front of him."

A hissing vent expelled from Nightflier. His wings drooped tensely, and he had to avert his optics from his sister. Cliffjumper . . . It shed more light on their relationship.

"You and Cliffjumper interface," he said softly, not quite getting so sick at the thought anymore. It wasn't deflowering his sister anymore—it was healing. "He helped you get over this, didn't he?"

Nightstalker nodded. "Still is."

"I owe him a lot then."

"Yeah."

A small silence settled over them. Briefly using the internet to shed some light on "Stockholm's Syndrome," the results left his energon tanks in knots. After a moment, he whispered back,

"You wouldn't ever go back to Megatron anymore, would you?"

"Of course not!" she snapped immediately, orange optics flashing dangerously. "Are you out of your slagging mind? Frag me flying, I wouldn't ever let him TOUCH me again!"

"I know you say that now," Nightflier said gently, keeping his optics level with hers, "but what about when he makes nice again? When he says he loves you and he wants you back? When he wants to make you queen of the Decepticons—"

"Don't talk like that!" she exploded angrily. "He doesn't want me! He raped me!"

"And I'm just trying to get you to understand that he WILL do that, Nights!" Nightflier's voice rose in irritation that she was trying to block out a very real scenario. "He does want you! He wants you more than anything now that he knows you're my sister and I'm the new Prime! He wants to use you against me, and he wants to take advantage of you like he's always done, and just because you're trying to turn a blind optic to it doesn't mean it isn't going to happen!"

A stricken look crossed her features. Too late, Nightflier realized he had jumped the gun and his words had crucified what he was trying to remedy. She jerked to her peds, intending on leaving, and Nightflier lunged after her, grabbing her wrist. "Nightstalker, wait—!"

"Don't touch me!" she snapped. She yanked against him until he staggered. But he refused to let go.

"I'm sorry!"

"No you're not!" She yanked and pulled until he had to use both hands to hold on to her, and a steady panic filled his spark. He wouldn't lose her again. He couldn't let go. "You called me a stupid glitch that's just going to go crawling right back to get raped again!"

"That's not what I meant!" he cried out in horror, voice cracking under the strain. "Nights, please—"

"Don't touch me!" she shouted, and she clawed at him with her free hand. "Let go! Let go of me!"

"I won't!" he shouted back. "Nights, I'm NOT letting you go again!" Grabbing her other wrist and shaking her, his voice cracked beneath the weight of his passion. "Nightstalker, stop it! I'm sorry! As a brother—Nights, as a brother—I can't lose you again!"

She stopped struggling immediately at his words, and he drew her into a bone crushing hug, trembling as he rasp in her audios, "I . . . I can't lose you again . . . I—Megatron or something stupid I've said, I just . . ."

After a second, he felt her return the hug just as hard as he did, and he swallowed when he felt her shoulders tremble. He couldn't cry. She needed him to be strong.

"Sorry," she whispered back into his collarbone. "I . . . guess it'd be good for you to know I'm bipolar as well."

He nodded. "Okay. And I wear my spark on my sleeve and tend not to think before I speak."

She decided to keep the hyper-sexuality and sadomasochism to herself. That would be a bit much . . . Instead, she just cuddled up close to his chassis, realizing how much she had missed him the past several days. Her spark hummed and relaxed so close to his, and he kneaded that spot in between her wings.

For a few moments, they just stood, and then Nightflier drew her away with a soft smile. "I need you to do something for me."

Nightstalker blinked. "O-Oh, okay. What?"

Nightflier's big blue optics softened, and he chucked her chin gently. "Just . . . Tell him I owe him."

Her face pinched into a smile. "All right."

Chuckling softly, they parted on good terms, and Nightflier felt his spark settle more comfortably than it had been before. Still, he glanced once to Nightstalker as she went the opposite way down the base, and he vented sharply. He headed back to the main hangar, and entering, saw Bumblebee with Raf on his computer.

He approached him, clearing his throat to catch his attention. The young mech jolted straight.

*Nightfall!*

The Prime made his lips tip up a little. "Hey, Bumblebee. Can I talk to you for a second?"

*Uh, sure!*

Gesturing for him to follow and waving at Raf, Nightflier took him to a quieter edge of the base as people began to return from their energon scouting missions. Then, when he turned to face Bumblebee, he found himself looking at the floor.

Bumblebee nervously cleared his vocalizer. *Um . . . So, uh, what is it, sir?*

Nightflier waved him off. "No, not as a Prime. Just as Nightstalker's brother." Giving a sigh, he looked up at the waiting mech. "So, since Nights basically says you're her brother, you two are really close, right?"

Bumblebee nodded. *Yeah. We're pretty close*

Swallowing, Nightflier looked up into his big optics and probably said one of the hardest things for him to say. "Bumblebee, I need you to be there for her."

*Of course*

Nightflier shook his head. "No, I mean . . . As much as I am her brother, I'm still Prime. That entails different responsibilities. So what I'm saying is . . . Whenever I can't be there for her, I need YOU to be there for her. And maybe . . . just maybe be a better brother for her when rank gets in between us."

The yellow and black mech across from him paused. Then, he said a little uncomfortably, *I'll never be a BETTER brother . . . But I can promise to be there for her*

A small, relieved smile touched Nightflier's facial features. "Thanks, Bee. I owe you."

His optics brightened and whirred with a smile. He laughed a little. *No problem*

Excusing himself, Nightflier parted from Bumblebee to let the mech go play with Raf again. Smokescreen barged in from his scouting trip with a grin and socked him in the shoulder as he passed. Deciding he needed to explain to Angel and Prophet—and no doubt, the other humans—why he had been fighting with his father the other day, he left the base again in search of them, hoping they might have a little free time. Instead, and he turned the corner, he ran smack into another bot.

Throwing out his arms to catch her fall, Nightflier's optics widened. "A-Arcee! Slot, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there!"

"It's all right," she said as he released her. She looked up at him, optics whirring a little at a glint of sun off his armor. "I wasn't paying much attention either." She paused, and then she frowned. "Did you ever catch Nightstalker?"

Nightflier nodded with a grin. "Yeah, I did. Talked it out and got things straightened out. I think we're doing pretty good again."

"Good."

There was an awkward pause in which both struggled to fill the silence. Nightflier cleared his throat, suddenly remembering where he had last left her—putting a kiss smack on her lips. That made him blush a little. Trying not to think about it, he muttered, "Well, um, this is probably going to sound weird . . . and I hope you don't judge me for this, but . . . I really wanted to thank you for breaking it off with Cliffjumper."

She blinked.

Rapidly, Nightflier tried to backpedal. "W-Well! I mean, that's not what I meant—I mean, it was! But I just—Cliffjumper, I didn't realize how much he meant to Nights—well, how much he's done for her! They—yeah, they've been through a lot, and I didn't realize before we just talked that he's made a big impact on her life, and you know, he was the reason she became an Autobot and what he's done for her regarding the rape—"

"Nightfall."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Stuttering to a stop, Nightflier tried and failed not to blush so much. Arcee sighed and put her hands on her hips. "Look. I know what he's done for her, you don't need to justify it so much. I know. And I'm happy for them."

He looked back to her face. "You are?"

Arcee nodded. "Of course. He's done for her . . . so much. Really, she needed him far more than I did. And she always had his spark. So while the initial break up was a bit rough, when Cliffjumper was recovering from rescuing Nightstalker, I talked things out with him and we've been on good terms ever since."

"O-Oh." Nightflier tried to remember not to stutter. "So, um . . . Yeah. That's what I needed to say."

There was another small pause, this one not quite as awkward as the one before. "Hey, Nightflier?"

"Yeah?"

Arcee's stunning blue optics looked up into him. "Are you all right?"

The smacked a stinging question into him. Making a slight face, Nightflier put his hands on his hips and looked down at her, saying with a shrewd look in his optics, "You know? I hate it and love it when you ask me that question."

She shrugged slightly and her lips twisted up, returning his tiny, tentative flirt with, "Well, you'd better get used to it, because it's going to keep happening."

He leaned down closer, squinting his optics at her. "Is that a promise?"

She mimicked the look, bringing them just a mite closer. "What do you think?"

Nightflier's throat bobbed, and he wet his lips nervously when he realized how close they were. Conspicuously, he cleared his throat, straightening back up. "Well, sounds like one to me. So, ah . . ."After a moment, Arcee finally straightened up too, giving Nightflier the space he needed to steady his in takes. "Well, I'm all right. I mean, I'm not happy with what Nightstalker's been through, and I wish I could have been there to protect her, but . . . I'm glad she's got you guys now. And we're on good terms again, so," and he shrugged with a small smile, "I guess I can't complain too much."

Arcee just looked up at the curve of his lips for a second, and then, Nightflier's spark ramped up into overdrive when she leaned forward. He held still as she closed the gap between them, and then soft lips touched his, caressing tenderly. The magnetic touch was brief and she leaned back, but Nightflier's optics were round as saucers and his spark sputtered irregularly.

"By the Celestial Spires . . ."

Before he knew what he was doing, Nightflier wrapped and arm around her waist and pulled her close, kissing her again. She met him with a soft gasp, and Nightflier felt his wings dip as if drugged by the sweet taste of her lips. Mouths fused, Arcee's arms wrapped around him, and his other hand stole up to her cheek, thumb stroking as he kissed her soft and deep. She turned her head slightly, deepening the kiss on an edgy slant, and warmth bloomed in Nightflier's chassis.

Someone cleared their throat politely, saying, "Nightfall."

They didn't hear it the first time. Arcee's fingers forced beneath the armor of his back, digging into the highly sensitive protoform, and Nightflier let out a small moan in response. He tightened his grip on her, searching to bring her closer. The kiss became hotter, harder, and Arcee's back was bent back as he leaned over her.

"Nightfall!"

His audios pricked at the sound of someone . . . calling someone . . . but he didn't recognize the name, and he didn't care. He nipped Arcee's bottom lip before his lips crashed down on hers again, spark heating as his claws scratched at her waist.

"NIGHTFLIER!"

Shocked back to the world, Nightflier released a jagged gasp to catch his breath as he finally released Arcee's lips. She panted without breath with a delightful blush, and he was just about to seize her lips again when he saw her optics widen.

She scrambled away from him, snapping into a sharp salute and staring past him. "Sir!"

Nightflier squeezed his optics shut.

There was only one person on this base they called "sir."

Slowly turning around to face his apparent doom, he found Ultra Magnus standing arms and legs akimbo outside the base walls with them, one finger tapping his hip in irritation. Nightflier sucked in a breath. "Yes, sir?"

Ultra Magnus gave one sharp exvent. "Arcee, you are dismissed."

She nodded and jerked into another acute salute. "Yes, sir!"

Nightflier craned his head back and narrowed his optics at Ultra Magnus as Arcee marched herself into the base. Instead of getting angry, Nightflier decided to ask the obvious.

He crossed his arms. "Is there a problem here, Ultra Magnus?"

That finger tapped firmly, a clear indication of the temper broiling beneath his complexion. "Yes, in fact, there is," he said just as frankly.

Nightflier's lips thinned. "If you're going to preach to me like the Prime's in this thrice-damned Matrix are, you can stow it right now."

His optics flickered, and his brows frowned. "I would advise you heavily not to curse the holy Matrix," he managed to grate out with just the slightest hint of a growl. "I would also advise you to take both their and my advice seriously."

"I can't take advice seriously when it's stupid," Nightflier shot back, also dipping his voice to meet the challenge.

If it was possible, Ultra Magnus only became stiffer at his disregarding of the rules. "How stupid is it if these Primes speak from experience, and I speak from going through the experience?"

Nightflier narrowed his optics. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you know what happened to Elita One?"

Nightflier shifted. "Who's Elita One?"

An aggrieved vent blasted from Ultra Magnus's mouth. "She was Optimus Prime's spark mate."

For a second, Nightflier just blinked. Then, he looked away, feeling a prickle of discomfort chasing up his spine. "Yeah?"

Ultra Magnus paused before continuing. "He was involved with her before the war. Though we tried to persuade him otherwise, he bonded with her early in the war, too in love with her to see the dangers such a bond would present."

The second in command's chest contracted as he pushed out a hard breath. "In short, Elita was captured and used as ransom against Optimus. During this time, Optimus's desperate actions condemned three units to their deaths, all 24 of each group massacred."

Nightflier flinched. 72. Ducking his helm, he tried to come up with something suitable to say. He came up with nothing.

"There came a time we thought we had a bead on her location," Ultra Magnus continued. "Prowl and I advised against heading so deep into enemy territory, but Optimus would not listen. He was blinded by his love for her and as such, took myself, Prowl, himself, and a group of eighteen other highly trained mechs on this mission."

"Let me guess," Nightflier muttered, "only you and Optimus made it out alive?"

"No." The commander's servos tightened on his hips. "Prowl called a tactical retreat when half of our unit was slaughtered in the trap. When we began to flee, they executed Elita on the spot in the hopes to cripple Optimus." He paused. His optics darkened a shade.

"Their plan worked. Optimus fell into despair. I was forced to throw him over my shoulder and flee with Prowl covering my back. Of our unit, only five remained. We were lucky Optimus survived the spark break." Ultra Magnus shook his head. "The trauma effected him greatly. His processor was . . . different. You could possibly ask Ratchet to detail the difference in Optimus as he grew general more reserved from everyone after the incident."

When Nightflier was completely silent, digesting all of this, Ultra Magnus gave a slight sigh, brows pinching. "Nightfall, I am merely telling you what happened and the effects it had. Through his spark bond to Elita One, Optimus made his greatest mistakes, sacrificed so many for one in an effort that would not help Cybertron—or anyone—and he carried that guilt with him. He did not say it in so many words, but . . . He sometimes wondered if he had done the right thing in bonding with her."

Nightflier's lip curled sullenly as they stood outside in the heat of day. "So, what? You're telling me I can't ever love anyone?"

A frustrated breath left Ultra Magnus. "I am warning you of the costly repercussions this could have. You must be extremely careful in who you fraternize with, Nightfall. I would not advise it. An effective commander should not form deep bonds."

As if in echo of Ultra Magnus's words, Nightflier could hear the Primes of old communicating to him through the Matrix, agreeing in the folly that Nightflier tempted himself with. Angrily, he tried to block them out, but they were persistent with what history had shown them over and over again.

"You cannot pick and choose favorites. You cannot be hesitant to send Arcee, or even Nightstalker, into dangerous situations. Love clouds judgment."

Nightflier scowled freely then even as he felt Optimus shamefully admitting to him the wrongs he had committed as Prime. "So, what, I can't love anyone?" he snapped. He glared up at Ultra Magnus, wondering if he was angrier with the second in command for pushing his buttons or the incessant pressure from the Matrix. "So, I'm supposed to just forget about how I feel to Arcee? I'm supposed to break my newly fixed bond with my father because it's going to 'cloud my judgment'? Cybertron below me, I'm not even supposed to pursue a bond with my own sister to finally resolve all the issues between us? I—"

He cut off short, overwhelmed by the weight of the pressure trying to influence his decision in his spark. With an agitated cry, he turned from Ultra Magnus, shouting down at his chassis, "Shut up! Shut up! I don't WANT your advice! I don't care! Just shut the frag up! Slot, I am so over this slag! Shut up!"

Without meaning to, he made a scene by being unable to keep those thoughts to himself he was so agitated. But, they finally receded from him. He whirled again on Ultra Magnus, mouth working a second as he tried to remember where he was. He clenched his fists, snapping, "And I'm not supposed to look at you as a mentor either, because that would be detrimental to how I order you around in battle. Well fine then! You want me to become a sparkless figurehead? That's what you want me to be?"

His furious blue optics cut into his second in command angrily, and he witnessed his face pinch and a hand come up to rub his forehead. "Nightfall . . ." He twitched because it was on the tip of his glossia to tell him not to call him that. He heaved a heavy sigh, and squatting down to his level, blinked blue optics down at him. "I do not know the answers," he said quietly. "And I cannot make your decisions for you. All I can give you is what guidance I know. And in regards to this . . . Just . . . Be careful, Nightfall. Be VERY careful."

Nightflier took a deep breath, trying to release the stress from his shoulders. "All right," he murmured back, peds shuffling a little. "Sorry. I've just . . . got a lot of pressure coming from the Matrix."

A giant hand was placed on his shoulder. Nightflier looked up at Ultra Magnus. "Optimus complained of the same thing. Just remember: they are your consultants, not your patriarchs."

"As I keep TRYING to tell them," he muttered with an exasperated roll of his optics. He gave a soft sigh, and Ultra Magnus removed his servo from his shoulder, standing back straight. "I guess there's not much to do but keep scouting for energon. Tell the bots I've got grid 303. I need some air."

Ultra Magnus nodded dutifully. "As you will, sir."

Well, he took his flight. He blew off some steam and enjoyed his flying while he could even as he kept his scanners on the lookout for energon or Predacon bones. He honestly didn't think he'd find either.

Little did he know, he had just left his bots to the "shark" affectionately called Ultra Magnus. Under his thumb of power, there was little they could do but submit to his strict rules.

Still, Nightflier didn't really know about all of that. He was aware Ultra Magnus was more stringent than he was used to, but he hadn't noticed anything unusual. Until now, as he landed outside of the base after his lengthy flight and everyone came his way.

EVERYONE.

Blinking in surprise as he was warmly greeted, Nightflier gave a bewildered laugh, saying, "Guys, I wasn't gone that long! Unfortunately, I didn't find anything but tumbleweeds, and with the lack of Decepticon activity lately, I'm guessing Megatron's already got his claws on the specimens he needs to—"

His glossia fumbled a moment as he looked around at them. There, between Ratchet's hip and Bulkhead's hip, there was just enough gape to see around them and to his second in command standing alone at the computers.

He felt his spark sink.

"Clone his army."

Feeling a mite . . . sad? Guilty? Or maybe it was compassion. But Nightflier again realized he needed to open his optics to the Cybertronians around him and deal with the quiet dissent as everyone got used to everyone else.

At the same time, he blinked over at Wheeljack and Nightstalker, both mech and femme in question covered in obscene amounts of coolant. Nightstalker blushed with a little grin as she wiped a clump of the thick green goop off her arm.

"I helped Wheeljack recalibrate Ultra Magnus's ship's engines," she told him. Wheeljack elbowed her, and she shoved him back, grin broadening. "He's the messy one, not me, I promise."

Wheeljack snorted, shoving her back as they all slowly dispersed. "Right. Tell that to the one who threw it in my face!"

"Because YOU dumped it down my back!"

Both of them rolled their optics at the same time and pointed their thumbs to one another. "See what I have to live with?" they chorused together.

It took Nightflier . . . longer than expected to make his way back around to Ultra Magnus that afternoon. It was like everyone wanted to have a civil chat with him, and it was refreshing to touch base with all of his soldiers. But it was Ultra Magnus he was worried about. So after weaseling his way out of talking with Cliffjumper—which took a lot more effort than it should since the mech talked a mile a minute—Nightflier was finally able to work his way over to Ultra Magnus again.

From between the cracked doors of the hangar, Nightflier could see his friends running drills. Ultra Magnus was looking out, but not quite at them. He cleared his throat as he approached.

"Ultra Magnus." The commander turned, looking down at Nightflier. He gave a shrug, saying, "What's up? You've got something on your mind."

He almost felt the air blast from Ultra Magnus's lips, and he realized at that moment that he needed someone to talk to. "I fear that my command style may be having a negative effect on unit morale," he confessed almost immediately.

The absolute volume of guilty sheepishness coloring his voice almost made a smile tug his lips. But Nightflier held it back, instead saying, "Ultra Magnus, I appreciate everything you do and help me with. But . . . You're running this place like it's the Elite Guard, and it's not."

He looked away from him at the beam of sunshine slanting through the door. "Things have changed since the War for Cybertron."

This time, Nightflier did let the support smile tip his mouth upwards. "Well, with change, you've got to learn to be flexible so you can keep up with that change." That smile tugged more. "And you, my dear friend, are as stiff as they come. You've got to understand that . . . this team is not made up of cogs in a machine." Nightflier looked up at Ultra Magnus, meeting his optics. "You've heard me talk about my Protectobot unit I was a part of, right?"

When the second in command nodded, Nightflier nodded freely. "Well, that's the line I'm trying to draw. There's a difference between the Elite Guard and the Protectobots—and a unit like this. Though the circumstances are different, I fell in so easily with these guys because they remind me of my unit. The lines between the different ranks were blurred—there was so much to do that we all became adept in each other's strengths, and we did what we had to do to get the mission done. Barring Hotspot as the obvious leader and me as the kid, the other four?" He shook his head. "They were basically the same rank. There basically WAS no rank."

He gave a shrug towards the bots in the room. "They're basically without rank as well. That's why they had such a hard time detailing to me their rank. They became such a tight knit group that it didn't matter who did what, just as long as we all reported to the Prime." He paused. Then, he gave a grimacing smirk. "And stayed off Ratchet's bad side."

Waving his hands, realizing he had gotten a little off track, Nightflier said, "Look. The point I'm trying to make is that these guys have grown into something greater than an army. Like my Protectobots, they've become—"

The alarm began to wail, drowning out his voice, and Ratchet's voice cut across the room with a sharp, "Nightfall! Our scanners have detected exposed energon."

Instantly, everyone turned to him. Jumping at the sudden attention, he blurted, "Well, reserves are almost empty, so we need this energon more than anything. Let's investigate. And split up into teams—the Wreckers and everyone else."

"Ooh!" Smokescreen all but jumped forward. "Nightfall! We should totally create a cool name for the rest of us! Like . . . I dunno, the Stealth team!"

Nightflier considered it for a click, and not coming up with anything better, shrugged and said, "Sure. The Wreckers and the Stealth team."

Arcee's jaw literally dropped. Cliffjumper groaned audibly, protesting, "Aw, c'mon! Surely there could have been a better name than that!"

Nightflier grinned. "Well, if you think of something better, you can submit your idea for pending."Bumblebee tinkled with laughter at that, and Nightflier continued, "So, the Wreckers will lead the initial assault and hit them hard from the front. Stealth team, you'll flank them to catch them off guard, and eh . . . I'll just pick off anyone you miss. Sound like a plan?"

It was simple, but one Hotspot used frequently because of its simplicity that never seemed to fail. As the bots agreed and began to grab their weapons, hustling to move out, Nightflier jabbed his finger into Ultra Magnus's gut, catching his attention. He narrowed his optics up at his second in command, wagging his finger.

"This conversation will continue when we get back."


	64. Complicated Talks

**Author's Note:**

**I like this chapter. ^-^ I like it when I like my chapters. I think I ought to say that overall, this story? It has officially passed the 500 pages mark in Book Antiqua 11pt font, NO spacing. :O**

**Anyways, much love to all of you guys faithfully posting those reviews that feed me to get the next chapter up! Hope you all enjoy it!**

* * *

><p>"YO!"<p>

All the Vehicons looked up at the shout.

Flanked by the Wreckers, Nightflier grinned down at them, jerking a thumb back to the mechs. "If you surrender the energon, I promise I won't sic these guys on you!"

There was a pause, as if they were garnering up the courage to attack—or, truly debating his option—before they drew their weapons. Nightflier couldn't help but smirk as he watched the more seasoned warriors take off down the mountainside, immediately decimating the front. From the rear, the Stealth team flawlessly cut down the flank, the helpful toys Ultra Magnus's ship had been packing being a great deal of help.

Speaking of such, Wheeljack had the whip he and Nightstalker notoriously fought over. He had initially won it in an unfair arm wrestling match, but Nightflier had opted to leave his sister and his father behind, along with Cliffjumper to placate his angry sister.

Then—

Wait just one darned minute!

Suddenly aware he had let his mind wander with appreciation over watching his troops dominate the field of battle, Nightflier hurried down, and by the time he had made it, he groaned.

"Man! You guys couldn't have left me one?"

Bulkhead laughed, disarming. "You snooze, you lose!"

"Look at all that sweet fuel," Smokescreen said, holding up a crystal appreciatively.

Nightflier smiled, relieved to know that finally SOMETHING was going right for once! They got the energon they needed, the battle was flawless, no one got hurt—

Catching Ultra Magnus looking at him, the second in command gave a small inclination of his helm towards the cave entrance. OH.

Trying to stifle a slightly embarrassed blush, Nightflier said, "Well, okay, uh, Stealth team, take all that juicy energon back to base. And Wreckers? Reconnoiter the mine."

"I've always wanted to roll with the Wreckers!"

Nightflier blinked at Smokescreen who looked to Ultra Magnus. He quickly snapped to attention, tacking on, "Sir."

Striving to keep things as easy going as they were, Nightflier waved him off. "Good idea, Smokescreen. You might learn a thing or two from these guys. Permission granted."

He watched as the Wreckers with their tagalong Smokescreen disappear into the mine. He waited a moment, and when he heard no movement, turned with a cheeky grin to them.

"The energon isn't gonna move itself, sweet sparks!"

They blinked at him. Bumblebee started to venture something, stopped, and it was finally Arcee that crossed her arms and rolled her optics. "Am I calling the bridge, or are you, Nightfall?"

Blushing sheepishly, Nightflier touched his audio. "Hey, Ratchet? We're ready for that bridge."

Almost immediately, the bridge opened up. Glancing to the swirling portal, Nightflier extended his servos to it with a teasing glint in his optics to Arcee.

"Ladies first."

She didn't even grace him with an answer to that. Instead, she just grabbed the nearest batch of energon, pushing it through the ground bridge. Oddly, before Bumblebee could begin to go through, Nightflier blinked wide when he saw his father come out of the bridge.

Nightflier looked up at him. "Yeah? Something wrong?"

Dreadwing looked at his hand thoughtfully. "Nightstalker wants me to hit you because she says I will hurt you more than she could."

The young Prime shrank back a little, giving him a dubious look. "Are you going to?"

His fist clenched, and he glanced towards Nightflier. "Do you want me to?"

"Not particularly," he said truthfully, backing up a bit more. He knew his father could pack quite the punch.

He lowered his fist with a nod of his helm. "Then I won't. If she is angry at you, she may confront you how she wills."

Nightflier pinched his brow that afternoon, sighing. "She's still mad at me?"

Dreadwing gave a slight shrug. "She wanted to fight, and you refused her. Why?"

"Well—I—You know—She—" Fumbling for his words a moment, Nightflier couldn't come up with a response. But he DID look over at Bumblebee, just realizing that the young scout was still with them. The yellow and black mech gave a guilty whir and all but ran his load of energon through the bridge.

When Nightflier failed to answer, Dreadwing hiked his brow up and put his servos on his hips. Nightflier squirmed, feeling his father's disapproval through his spark. "Why did you choose not to take me along?"

That seemed to settle Nightflier into something he knew how to answer. "Aw, c'mon, really? If I had taken everyone, that would have been way overkill! I mean, I probably had more than enough guys as it was!"

"You could have chosen different soldiers," Dreadwing calmly pointed out. Arcee came back through the bridge for the last batch of energon, and the conversation lagged awkwardly as she slowly pushed the energon through the bridge. Only when she was through did Dreadwing continue. "Nightstalker and I are fliers. If you were thinking truly tactical, we would have been a top choice for a quick and effective strike from above." He swept a hand out towards the fallen troops. "We knew our foe would be land based Vehicon troopers. Miner class. An air strike would have decimated them."

Nightflier mimicked his gesture by throwing an arm out to the fallen enemy. "Still worked, didn't it?"

Dreadwing vented in frustration, and he crossed his arms. "Nightfall, you are avoiding the question."

"You know, I told you that you could call me Nightflier when we're alone."

"Right now, I am speaking to you as my Prime, if you will." He paused. "And a disapproving father."

Fluttering his wings nervously, Nightflier shuffled his peds across the ground. "Nightfall?" He jumped sharply hearing Ratchet's voice over the comm. link. "Are you and Dreadwing coming?"

He touched his audio. "Yeah, Ratchet, give us a minute. We're having a . . . complicated talk. We'll be right through in a minute." He crossed his arms as well, frowning. "So?"

A soft grumble stewed in Dreadwing's chassis. "I am saying simply that you are not using us according to our abilities, but holding us back. What I want you to do is tell me why."

Nightflier pursed his lips stubbornly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Dreadwing grunted. "Then why didn't you let Nightstalker fight? You forced Cliffjumper to stay behind against his will just to placate her."

A hot little blush began to scratch its way up his throat. "She's not fully trained yet."

"And how can she be trained unless she receives experience?"

"Just what are you saying?"

"I'm saying you need to let go," Dreadwing stressed to him, both father and son standing legs akimbo and arms crossed. "You're stifling her."

"I'm protecting her," Nightflier snapped back, jutting his chin up and refusing to let his father's greater stature intimidate him.

A vent blasted from Dreadwing's systems. "And how is crippling her of the ability to protect herself helping to protect her? What if you aren't there to protect her?"

"I will be!" The hot flush of anger began to steal over his cheeks, and his arms slacked tight to his sides, hands clench into fists. "I'm not going to let her get hurt again! All right? I won't put her at risk!"

Dreadwing's darker blue optics flickered, and his wings tilted downward in disapproval. "That kind of attitude is not fit in a commander," he reminded him strictly, holding his temper in check. "You—"

Nightflier interrupted him with a scoff, wings flaring wide in agitation. "Oh Cybertron below me, don't you start spouting that at me as well. I know what I'm doing!"

His lip curled just a tiny bit. _Dear Primus above, he was just like him!_ "You're just being stubborn," Dreadwing said testily, optics darkening a shade. "I'm trying to protect you from the same mistakes I made!"

"You can't protect me from everything!"

"And you can't protect Nightstalker from everything! She is a full grown femme, Nightflier, not the same child you remember! You can't always be there for her, and if you continue to do this, you're going to lose her!"

"I won't!" Nightflier shouted back at him, wingtips snapping to the ground, visibly showing his anger. "Don't you see? I won't lose her again! I can't! Not you, not her, I'm not risking it! Frag me flying, I'm NOT going to lose you guys again, and if that means quarantining you both to base, I'll do it! I will! I won't go through losing you again!"

The tiniest crunch of a rock made both quarreling parties turn towards the entrance of the cave. Smokescreen and Bulkhead stared, clearly having found nothing inside.

Nightflier swallowed. Instinctively, both he and Dreadwing took a step away from each other. "How long have you been standing there?"

Bulkhead shifted uncomfortably. "Uh . . ."

A flush slowly colored Smokescreen's cheeks. Bringing a hand to his mouth, he cleared his throat, saying, "Um, long enough."

Heaving a great vent, Nightflier closed his optics and pinched his brow, rocking back on his heels. Wonderful. Putting his servos on his hips, he looked up at them. "Could I persuade you not to talk about this to anyone?"

"Sure thing," Smokescreen said quickly.

Bulkhead nodded as well. "All you need to do is ask—"

A blast deep from within the cave made them all stagger by the force of it, and Smokescreen whipped his head back. "What was that?"

For a second, no one breathed. "Wait a second," Nightflier stalled. Using the built-in seismometers in his peds, Nightflier felt for more vibrations. At first, there were no more coming. Then, he felt another. It was smaller, but the fact he could feel that slam at all spoke of the force behind it.

"They finally find the extra security?" Smokescreen asked helpfully.

Nightflier held up a hand. "Shh!" He didn't know why he wanted him quiet. The seismometer measured the vibrations in the earth, not sound, but for the sake of his concentration, he had to know . . . Another crash. Faint. For a minute, Nightflier was unsure of what he was feeling, but it had to be a battle. They had to be fighting. It was the only explanation.

"Something's wrong," he finally said. He glanced between them before his gaze settled on his father. Dreadwing's brow cinched at him. "Look," he stressed, already not in the mood to renew the fight, "I'm going to have to ask something hard of you, and that's to trust me. I know what I'm doing, and I need you to respect my decision, all right?"

Dreadwing merely gave a silent nod of his helm, and Nightflier looked back to Bulkhead and Smokescreen. His lips pressed, and he swore quietly under his breath as he looked back to his father. He needed his heaviest hitter. He could feel the crashes in the earth through his peds, and he knew they were fighting a real brawler, a serious battle. They needed help, and his father was the most advanced fighter they had.

He was a seeker too. He could get back there much faster than either Bulkhead or Smokescreen could, confined to their wheels. There was just enough room in that opening for his wingspan. And they needed speed. They needed to get back there quickly.

Nightflier looked back to Bulkhead and Smokescreen again, knowing they had to get a move on now. He had already wasted precious time thinking—

Swearing again under his breath, Nightflier ordered, "Dad, we'll check it out. Bulkhead, Smokescreen, report back to base. Tell Ratchet to lock onto my coordinates and await my command." Without any further ado, Nightflier gestured for Dreadwing to come, and they took off just as Bulkhead and Smokescreen hurried back into the ground bridge.

Weaving through the cave, Nightflier and Dreadwing flew their way deep into the heart of danger. And when they drew upon the sight that met them, lightning fast communication happened through their sparks, delineating a simple order.

Duck.

Nightflier transformed to his bipedal form and staggered a step as his father went hurtling past in jet form. At the last second, Dreadwing transformed and utterly CRASH-tackled into the single most massive mech Nightflier had ever seen before in his life. However, the Prime didn't dwell on his enemy yet, only the two fallen mechs on the ground.

Nightflier pitched to his knees next to Ultra Magnus, energon tanks rolling at the sight of his crushed fingers in the dirt. He touched his comm. link, snapping, "Ground bridge! Now! Ultra Magnus and Wheeljack need medivac IMMEDIATELY!"

Primus, that was a lot of energon—His head jerked up when he heard his father cry out in pain, and he witnessed Dreadwing yank away with claw marks slashed into his side. When he kicked the legs from beneath his taller adversary, Nightflier looked back down in a slight panic at his second in command.

"Magnus! Magnus!" It was no use. He had already passed out from the pain and energon loss. A heavy, unintelligible moan brought his gaze up to the dusty white mech. "Wheeljack? Stay awake!" He jumped when the ground bridge blasted open, and the instant he caught sight of Ratchet, he scrambled to his peds, grabbing the first weapons he found—the whip.

"Get them out of here, now!" he shouted as Bulkhead rushed in right behind the doctor. Trusting them to take care of them, Nightflier turned to where his father was losing valiantly against the mech so much stronger than himself. Running forward as the mech literally picked up Dreadwing and tossed him across the cave, Nightflier tried to ignore the fact that he literally only came up to the mech's thigh.

With a yell, Nightflier lashed the electrical whip around the mech's left servo. Ducking across the right and opposite side, Nightflier ducked back between his legs and heaved with all his strength. Surprise was the only thing that gave him the advantage he needed. The mech snarled as he crashed face first into the ground, and Nightflier leapt on his back, drawing his sword and going for the neck.

A wing successfully clipped his jaw, and Nightflier reared before a clawed hand reached up and grabbed him. He cried out when those claws sank deep through his armor and into his protoform, nearly impaling straight through his shoulder. The world reeled in disoriented flight before Nightflier felt himself hit an unforgiving wall and collapse in a heap on the ground.

Groaning, he heard the crunch and fizzle of the whip getting destroyed. Lashing his shield to his arm, Nightflier staggered back to his peds and ran back into the fray where his father battled physical brutality with hands and feet against his more powerful enemy. Nightflier's gaze flattened. They just needed to distract him long enough!

He attacked low while his father attacked high. Throwing himself back into the fray, Nightflier ducked beneath a vicious slash of claws before slamming his shield against his knee. He danced to the side, slashing his sword and cutting the hand that descended towards him. The mech snarled angrily and turned to the opposite side where Dreadwing was pressing the attack, and Nightflier ducked and rolled, lunging and digging his blade into the mech's ankle. An agonized roar, and before Nightflier could get his Achilles heel, that ped kicked him square on and sent him hurtling across the field of battle.

Skidding and tumbling across the ground, Nightflier groaned back to his peds, the edge of the ground bridge energies tickling one of his wings. Lifting his helm, his spark plummeted as he saw the mech's claws grab his father and sling him across to the opposite side of the cave with a sickening crash.

Someone grabbed his arm. Nightflier jumped, almost attacking them before realizing it was Arcee. "Dreadwing!" she hollered across the way, trying to drag him through the bridge. "Now, now, NOW!"

Nightflier twisted from her grip and pushed her away. "Get out of here!" he ordered her in no uncertain terms. With a low growl, he sheathed his blade, racing forward several steps and drew his stun gun, shooting the mech square on the back of the neck. Instead of felling the mech as the blast should have, his armor was so thick it did no more than make him roar in anger and whirl on Nightflier.

The kick of jet engines signaled his father, and Nightflier continued shooting the mech that was barreling towards him. The second Dreadwing was clear of the ground bridge, he turned and fled as he heard another transformation. Self-preservation made him look back at the last second, and Nightflier's spark hit his stomach when he saw the Predacon, fires glowing up through its neck. Fear blossomed.

_The Predacon!?_

At the entrance of the ground bridge, Nightflier wildly turned back to face his adversary, lifting his shield in between the oncoming blast of fire. He yelled a garbled sound as he felt his entire body lifted and blasted through the ground bridge, but the stream of flames didn't stop. His peds hit the ground again inside the hangar, and he heard several shouts.

The toes of his peds dug into the ground, and his entire body strained forward against the stream of flames. His shield and armor began to burn incredibly hot. "RATCHET!" he howled. "Turn it OFF!"

He had barely finished the words when the ground bridge shut off, locking the Predacon out as well as his fire. So far in his lunge, Nightflier crashed forward into the ground. Vents coming fast in raw panic, Nightflier wildly cast off his shining hot shield and the armor of his left arm, trying to make the heat recede from his body. For a second, he didn't register that he was hyperventilating—but a careful brush against his spark reminded him of his father who was trying to soothe him, assuring him they were all right.

Nightflier whirled around to face the others in the room, sick with worry and afraid out of his mind. Ultra Magnus was already on Ratchet's table, stretched out and several crunched pieces of armor already removed. Nightstalker was helping Wheeljack who was at least conscious, but felt every cut and bruise and cracked armor. Dreadwing was bullied, but in bearable shape; he kept a clawed servo over the shallow cuts in his stomach, mere mesh wounds.

There was a ringing in his audios. He could see Nightstalker's mouth moving, but he couldn't make out her words. And suddenly, the fire was back. It was blazing, suffocating him in the forefront of his optics, choking him on the smoke. And he could smell it. He could smell burning protoform, a sickening smell of decaying flesh, and he could feel the burns creeping up his back, down his arms, everywhere he was. It ate his flesh, burned the nerve endings from his protoform until his back was nothing but tough leather and unfeeling.

Bolting across the room to where Nightstalker was fully facing him in worry, he grabbed her shoulders, nearly shaking her he was so wound up. "Are you all right?" he cracked out, optics glinting mad in terror. He checked her over, touching her, making sure she was in one piece, she was real, she was all right—"You're not hurt?" he asked again before she could answer.

"Nightfli—"

"You aren't hurt? You're not damaged? Nothing hurts? You're alive? You're all right?"

"Fli-Ni—"

"But I didn't find you—You're all right? Nights? Nights, answer me, are you—"

"NIGHTFLIER!" She shouted in his face and got him to flinch back. Her orange optics frowned at him. "I am FINE. YOU'RE the one leaking energon all over the floor!" Nightflier blinked slowly at her, almost stupidly as his processor caught up with his panic. "You sent me back to base, remember?" There was only a small degree of anger anymore in the event of bigger things. She patted his cheek when he was still too unresponsive. "Nightflier!"

He jerked again, jolting back to the present. His optics darted around the room and saw all the bots looking at him—save Ratchet, who was busy—and he suddenly realized where he was. With a thin gasp, he staggered back a step, blurting, "Sorry! I'm sorry, I just—Sorry, I—" He swallowed and sucked in a tight breath. Looking down at the floor, he saw where his energon was dripping fat splotches, and he suddenly felt woozy with lack of energon. And—oh Primus, that burning smell was real! That burned pain was real!

Wildly, Nightflier tried to jerk his own arm away from himself, and he went reeling before Nightstalker grabbed him and steadied him. "Nightflier! Calm down—SIT."

Nightflier stumbled backwards a little before his aft plopped down where Nightstalker sat him. Gesturing his mildly burned arm to her, he stammered, "Nights, Nights, my arm. My arm. I'm burned."

"Easy," she said, patting his hand briefly before running for the stitches and the welder—as that was about the extent of her medical abilities. "It's just a little thing."

"No, no Nights, I'm BURNED. I'm burned, you've got to fix it. You've got to—Nights, I'm burned!"

Hurrying back across the base, Nightstalker put her things down and took his hand. He twitched as if she had touched the actual burn. "Slow down, Fli-Ni," she said softly to him. "Look at it." Though he didn't want to—he knew what bad burns looked like—he did as she asked. "See? It's just a little burn. Just a little red. There's no blisters, no splotches, and it's barely even swelling. It's just a little one. No permanent damage."

He bit his lip, unable to stop how he felt a little more than confused. "But—I mean, that's not . . ."

_ That's not what happened to me so long ago._

There was a beat in which Nightstalker just looked at him, gauging what he was feeling before she turned around and said, "Arcee, can you get in there," and she pointed, "and wet one of those clothes with cool water and bring it back here? Don't wring it out."

"Of course."

It took those words to finally calm Nightflier. As Nightstalker welded the slashes in his armor shut, Arcee returned with the cool wet cloth, laying it over the stinging burn. It alleviated his fear. And when Nightstalker finished with his armor, she removed it and began to stitch up the cuts in his protoform.

Through all this, Nightflier couldn't help but notice that Bulkhead was patch welding Dreadwing. Maybe it was simply because Dreadwing had helped rescue Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus. But it was a show of trust since Dreadwing could have easily taken care of himself. Nightflier took heart in that.

Nightstalker finished stitching him in due time. Her small fingers were adept at that—and possibly more adept in the medical field than she was giving herself credit for. As Nightflier stood in the nearly silent silo as she moved on to help Wheeljack more, he made a mental tab to speak with Ratchet about truly considering taking her as a student. It would give her a role to fill.

But most of all . . . He couldn't help the worried frown on his face as Ultra Magnus's optics flickered and his eyelids twitched as he regained consciousness. The main patch work had been done. Ratchet's work had covered him well. Ultra Magnus's helm tilted towards Nightflier with a pained frown, exhausted and beaten.

Nightflier's throat jumped. Ultra Magnus's gaze drifted back down to where Ratchet was finishing precision welding on his knuckles. He looked at the stump of his hand blankly, almost indifferently as he raised it up just the tiniest bit to see what was left of it. A hurt and utterly spent sigh groaned from his vocalizer. He rested his hand back down.

Nightflier felt his spark twinge. He knew what it was like to be crippled. Instead, all he could say was, "Ratchet will take good care of you." He knew. The medic might be gruff, he might have his pet peeves, but he was the most excellent medic he had ever known—next to First Aid, of course. "We will support you."

His optics flickered again as he came to full consciousness, and the words out of his mouth were the last ones Nightflier could have been expecting. "Nightfall. When we spoke earlier . . . what could be greater than an army?"

Nightflier's optics softened even as he winced with Ultra Magnus when the slightest movements seemed to irritate their wounds. "Something that can never be torn apart, no matter what hardships it endures." He glanced to Nightstalker and Dreadwing respectively before his gaze swept the room with a small smile.

"Family."

* * *

><p>"Ratchet."<p>

It had actually been Ultra Magnus that decided he needed a new hand, no matter how limited its function may be. He argued that they could not be down a single warrior at this point, and he was willing to do his part. He had bounced back . . . seemingly better than Nightflier had accounted him for. Even so far as to press Nightfall to allow him and Wheeljack to report what the results of the mission had yielded. But now? Ratchet glanced up from his work on a rough replacement.

"What is it, Nightfall?"

His wings fluttered nervously. They were so low on supplies . . . If he hadn't healed his wings, he could have used the power of the Forge to heal him. But no, not even that. The Forge had been broken, snapped in half by the might of the Predacon. He cleared his throat a little nervously, lowering his voice so Ultra Magnus wouldn't hear their conversation and get false hopes. "I know we're low on supplies of any kind," he said quietly. "But . . . My wings."

Ratchet frowned immediately. "Need I remind you that the Forge—"

"I know," he interrupted the medic, holding up his hands in submission. "I mean my OLD wings." Ratchet blinked, already sensing exactly where he was heading with this. Nightflier nodded. "We don't have a use for them anymore. And they're pure Cybertronian cyber-matter." He gave a nervous shrug. "Cut them up, shape them into fingers . . ."

Ratchet waved a hand. "Yes, I understand, there's no need to put it in such crude terms." A small smile played at Nightflier's lips as the medic muttered to himself, a hand touching his chin as he contemplated it under his breath. Eventually, he nodded. "Yes, it is plausible, and workable. I will add it to my extensive to do list. In the meanwhile, I'll do what I can to provide him with a manageable alternative until I can manage to fashion such a complicated piece of Cybertronian biology."

Nightflier's smile softened even more. "Thanks, Ratchet." As the medic turned back to his work, Nightflier put a servo on his elbow, saying, "Don't strain yourself, all right? You get some rest too."

The medic seemed to pause, servos slowing in their work. The words were too similar to what Optimus would ceaselessly tell him. Old wounds aggravated, the medic finally cleared his vocalizer and hunched over his work more, saying brusquely, "Well, I won't. Now if you please, I'll get more done if I can focus."

The young Prime hesitated. "Ratchet . . . I mean that. Thank you. For—you know, everything you've done for my sister." When his vocalizer clotted up, he tried to discreetly clear it. "I owe you."

Ratchet's shoulders slumped with a sharp exvent. His servos still again, and he finally rasped a faint, "You are welcome," before he tried to continue his work again.

Sensing the emotion coming off the medic in waves, Nightflier put a hand on his arm again. "Ratchet? You all right?"

The CMO nodded furiously, and Nightflier was forced to leave it as is. He gave him a last passing pat before making his way to leave, stopped only by Ultra Magnus calling his name.

Ratchet bent over his work again, servos shaking too much to do anything. With a frustrated and overwhelmed sigh, Ratchet slumped down, elbows on the table, helm buried in his servos. He stared at the product of all the work he needed to get done, and the echo of Optimus's words chased their way into his spark. With an emotional scrub of his face, Ratchet left his work where it lay, heading to the berth rooms with his spark in a twist.

Nightflier walked up to Ultra Magnus's side, saying, "Yes? What is it?"

For a minute, Nightflier was confused as to why Ultra Magnus didn't say anything more. But then, he registered how tense he was, the brightness of his optics, and his strained vents. Immediately, Nightflier stepped up and grabbed his second in command's remaining hand, saying, "Easy. It'll pass."

The SIC seemed to try to say something, lips trembling before he set them flat and endured the phantom pain that seemed to crush his hand that wasn't there anymore and shoot up his arm. Nightflier waited while his hands were squeezed to an almost unbearably tight degree before the pressure lessened and Ultra Magnus began to relax again.

Finally, he asked quietly, "Was it always so bad for you?"

Nightflier gave a nervous shrug. "Yeah." His wings fluttered in the response of just remembering it. "You learn to accept it. You get better at enduring the pain."

Ultra Magnus's optics closed. "It was worse for you, wasn't it, sir? Both of your wings."

Nightflier paused. He gave a soft vent, wings dipping, and he squeezed the second in command's servo supportively. "I don't think it's fair to compare," he said quietly. "Pain is pain. And quit it with the sir."

His optics opened, and he looked towards Nightflier. "Perhaps it is unfair of me to ask, but . . . I . . ." His optics dropped, and he turned his face away again, struggling for his words. "How did . . . you manage?"

For a moment, Nightflier didn't respond. Then, he released Ultra Magnus's hand to grab one of Ratchet's white crates and push it to the side of the medical berth so he could sit next to his second in command. Once sitting comfortably, he offered his hand back to Ultra Magnus. He took it.

"I . . . can't say," he finally admitted on a breath. He shook his head, one leg jiggling restlessly in thought. "Everyone around me was a great support. I wouldn't have ever made it if not for those around me, so don't be afraid to accept emotional—or physical—support. You might have been the biggest and strongest of us, the one with the most accomplishments and stuff, but . . . Just remember to reach out to us. We all care about you. Don't be afraid to cry. I know I did. And just remember you're not alone."

Nightflier vented again, biting his bottom lip. "Besides, you're already doing a lot better than I did," he told him. "You're already trying to fix it. I mean—you're at least approaching the situation calmly and maturely unlike me."

"I am older," Ultra Magnus intoned. A tug of his lips twitched so faint Nightflier thought he had imagined it. "I've been through my fair share of the Pit. Though . . . This is my first time losing a limb. And I am lucky it is a replaceable part and does not hamper my every waking moment."

The young Prime shook his head. "We all have our own demons to face. And if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here, all right?"

Ultra Magnus nodded, and he closed his optics, settling back for a recharge. After a moment of silence, Nightflier felt his hand tighten around his. "Nightfall . . . Thank you. For being here."

His spark swelled with compassion, but he didn't say a word about the silent tears slipping down his SIC's face. Instead, he just squeezed the remaining hand even tighter. "Anytime."


	65. Mistake

**Author's Note:**

**Oh my, sorry it took me so long! Real life happened somewhere, and I just couldn't make time to get this chapter done. Well, it's longer this time, and quite interesting as well! So, I hope you guys and gals enjoy and review! :)**

* * *

><p>It took Bulkhead's knowledge to tell Nightflier that control rods were for construction—the Decepticons were looking to build something.<p>

Of what, Nightflier couldn't determine. No one else could either, but it bothered him over the days as he tried to help Ultra Magnus become acclimated with his new hand. Everyone was generally helpful, trying to help type up reports since it would take the SIC much longer with only one hand to type with. Nightstalker even became even more of a faithful assistant to Ratchet, making sure his lab was clean, documenting regular checkups so the CMO didn't have to, saving him time and effort on menial things so he could focus his processing power on the Synthen formula and begin his task on creating Ultra Magnus a functional hand.

"Prime."

But THAT was a name Nightflier couldn't seem to get used to. Agent Fowler seemed hell-bent on calling him mostly only that, but otherwise, they got along professionally, if his euphemisms confused Nightflier from time to time. In light of Optimus's passing, Nightflier even had to meet General Bryce, an interesting and short conversation in which he wasn't sure if Bryce gave him the benefit of the doubt of if he simply thought he wasn't good enough. Nightflier wasn't sure, but he did suspect that the general was waiting to see how he would perform.

"It's Cons again. In progress."

Nightflier wrinkled his nose. It was always Cons. But hey, at least they were in the middle of their heist and so they could possibly stop them, right? Nightflier glanced to Ratchet.

"Coordinates received, Agent Fowler," he reported before locking them in and opening the ground bridge.

Ultra Magnus immediately took charge for this assault. "Let's roll!"

"Nyep-ep!" Ratchet's hand on his chassis stopped him short. "Your ability to ROLL remains predicated upon further exploration of your manual dexterity."

For such a smaller bot, when Ratchet put his servos on his hips and gave you that look of his, no one dared to move. Ultra Magnus lifted his hand, and Nightflier felt his spark pang as the SIC struggled to move the clawed hand correctly.

"I'm afraid Ratchet's authority beats mine in medical situations," Nightflier said to Ultra Magnus.

The bigger mech sighed. "Understood."

Nightflier nodded and gestured. "Let's move out, guys." He started to lead the assault when he saw amongst everyone, Nightstalker. He frowned. "Ah, not you, Nights."

She narrowed her optics and came stomping right up to him. "And what for?" she all but snapped. "I'm not weak, I can fight just fine—"

"No no no," Nightflier hurried to say, trying to shush her so she wouldn't make a scene. His big blue optics flicked up to Ultra Magnus retreating away, and he lowered his voice so the SIC wouldn't hear. "Look, you know Ratchet's got a big work load right now, so I want you to help Ultra Magnus with his therapy. Can you do that for me?" When she still gave him a judgmental look, he tacked on with his best puppy dog eyes, "PLEASE?"

Nightstalker glared a moment longer before huffing, "Fine. But that doesn't mean I have to like it."

He gave her a quick hug before she could get away. "Thanks, Nights. I owe you one. And I promise, you'll be with us next time."

"Sure, sure . . ."

Catching sight of his father, Nightflier's wings perked up in surprise at the severe look he was given. He frowned right back.

_Ultra Magnus needs help with his therapy, and Ratchet can't be there to hold his hand the entire way. Nightstalker is good for the job._

All he received back from his father was an uncannily poking jibe:

_Keep telling yourself that._

With a slight huff, Nightflier turned back to the front, ordering, "Move out!"

Transforming and leading the charge, Nightflier zoomed out, tailed by his father and the Autobots' slower alt modes following—Cliffjumper, of all people, leading the ground troops, true to his gung-ho nature. Aha! And there, dead ahead, were the Vehicon perpetrators with a heavy bin clutched in their hands. Only a measly four? This was going to be easier than—

Nightflier almost swore when a ground bridge opened mere feet from them. Nightflier started to burn thrusters as the Vehicons open fired, but a sharp warning from his father's spark sent him reeling around.

_From the rear!_

Banking sharply around, Nightflier just caught sight of his father getting tailed by Laserbeak. If Laserbeak had Dreadwing in his sights, then Nightflier knew exactly who was tailing him. Ha! He wanted to dogfight? He just messed with the wrong mech!

He lost a little altitude he about-faced the mech so quickly, but he counted on that ground bridge to stay open just long enough. If Soundwave was holding it open for the Vehicons to get that tech through, he wouldn't be able to open one for himself. Nightflier already counted the tech as lost to the Decepticons—but by golly he wasn't going down without a fight!

Open firing on the elusive Decepticon, Nightflier doggedly pursued his enemy, taking pride in a field of combat where he excelled—aerial battle. The former gladiator was skilled with his peds planted firmly on the ground, but had never fought in the air much—he left such trivialities as that to Laserbeak. Therefore, when Nightflier's stun gun hit him dead in his rear engine, the young Prime could only gape as the stun blast sent the communications officer careening in a nauseating downwards spiral. Furthermore—even IF Soundwave had regained consciousness from the stun blast—he crash landed in a mess of power lines that made SURE he was unconscious.

Nightflier transformed and landed on the ground next to the shorted-out Soundwave, jaw literally hanging open. What a lucky shot! With a bewildered laugh, Nightflier turned to the others, shouting, "Great Cybertron! I hit him! I got him!" Then, the implications of his own words hit him as he whirled back around, gaping down at the helpless communications officer. "Sweet primal Primus—I GOT HIM." He looked up again, staring at the Autobots that were looking at him.

"We—We're bringing in a prisoner!"

* * *

><p>Tailing Ultra Magnus's signature, Nightstalker found him driving unassumingly down the road. Briefly, she wondered where his clawed hand would tuck in at, shook the insensitive thought from her processor, and angled herself down to his alt mode eerily close to the one Optimus had previously held.<p>

She transformed and landed some ways up the ground, giving him plenty of time to slow down. At first, he didn't, and then he chose to stop in front of her, engine grumbling.

"We are in a civilian sector," he said to her. "You should not be transformed. You risk blowing cover. Get back to base, soldier."

"There isn't another car for miles on this road, Sir," Nightstalker informed him as civil as she could to his rather rude remark. "And just for the sake of the record, you inquired once about my rank, correct?"

Ultra Magnus paused. "That is correct."

"And you said that it called for you to treat me with proper etiquette, right?"

"Correct."

"Then, I'm going to ask something hard of you," she told him while crossing his arms. "I need you to overhaul rank between us for the moment and allow me to talk with you face to face. Will that be all right?" He paused, but he didn't deny her request. She jerked a finger off the ground to the canyons that would hide them. "Then let's go."

She heard him give a vent, but he dutifully followed her. They had barely gotten off the road before Nightstalker frowned, stopped, and turned towards him. She held out her left hand.

"Take my hand."

She watched his brows pinch and lips press at her forcible effort to get him to use the claw. The second he opened his mouth, she cut in, "No, I don't want to hear excuses about dexterity. That's what we're trying to fix, right? So take my hand, Commander. That's an order."

Nightstalker made sure she wasn't mean about it, but firm. After all, she had seen many bots go through therapy—Bulkhead, Nightflier, even herself. After a moment, Ultra Magnus responded, and he lifted his dominant servo to her, 3-clawed appendage twitching and whirring as he struggled to get the fingers to function correctly. She ignored it if his new hand bumped hers or knocked her, but eventually, with some griping and thinly veiled swears, he managed to correctly take her hand.

Nightstalker nodded. "Good." She tugged him along, inwardly irritated at her brother to the point of anger for making her babysit, but she also knew his intentions were good . . . this time. She could take care of Ultra Magnus. Sure. But she was about over this sequestering her at base like she was a sparkling. She was ready to prove herself, and if he didn't let her come on the next mission, OOH he was going to get it!

Instead, Nightstalker allowed her mind to settle on the issue at hand—Ultra Magnus. Drawing him out of the direct line of sight—quite the feat since he was so blasted tall—Nightstalker found the densest clump of trees she could and pointed to the ground. "All right, sit down so those tree limbs will stop hitting you in the face." He sat immediately, almost subordinately. "You all right?"

"I'm fine."

She frowned. Kneeling down in front of him, Nightstalker wordlessly asked for his new appendage with a twitch of her fingers. He gave it. They sat in rather awkward silence as Nightstalker began to flex his fingers and stretch them, warming and loosening them to hopefully help with the stiffness.

Ultra Magnus frowned at her. As he always wore that frown. "Might I ask about your sudden interest in my health?"

Nightstalker bit her glossia. Did she lie? Did she tell the truth? "I've gone through therapy as well," she said evasively. "I know what it's like."

"Nightfall asked you to do this, didn't he?"

She paused. Guiltily, she nodded.

The second in command sighed. "To keep you out of the combat zone . . . I am afraid your troubles with him might be because of me."

Nightstalker glanced up, putting just enough pressure on the leading end of the claw, stretching the finger back. "What?"

Ultra Magnus nodded beneath the shade of the trees that late afternoon. "Yes. I . . . told him about Elita One, Optimus Prime's late spark mate. I am afraid I may have scared him into sequestering you to base."

Nightstalker huffed and bent his wrist back. She heard the slightest hitch in his systems and felt the tension, so she knew it hurt. "What has that got to do with Elita One?"

He rubbed his face briefly, trying to relax the taunt wires in his new hand. "Elita One was captured," he said, truncating the story as much as possible. "She was killed, and I am afraid Nightfall will not let you out of the base on behalf of this story that he might lose you."

"Well that's just stupid," Nightstalker muttered. "He can stow his little worries about me because I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

A sound came from Ultra Magnus. Nightstalker almost stopped because it almost sounded like a laugh, but it was close enough to pass for a grunt. "Of that, I am absolutely certain."

They lapsed back into silence again. After a minute or two of Ultra Magnus wincing as she worked his hand, she finally said, "You really shouldn't have told him that. He's gonna be a little sissy about everything now."

"In retrospect, it seemed like a good idea. I had no idea he was going to . . . ground you."

She shrugged, flexing his fingers back, then forth. "It happens. He promised he'd take me on the next mission, so if he doesn't, I've got perfect grounds to paint his aft pink and steal all his armor."

Ultra Magnus arched a brow at her. She merely smirked and shook her head. "He knows what he's dealing with. Maybe. He'll think twice about pulling the wool over my optics again if he tries it . . ."

Again, a quiet settled over them. This time, Nightstalker put him through a series of simple exercises for him to gain full functionality of the new hand: touching the fingers together; rotations; everything considering his manual dexterity to holding hands, shaking hands, holding things. As she did so, completely alone with him, she sighed.

"Ultra Magnus? Thanks."

His brows cinched. "What have I done?"

Nightstalker shook her head, sighing softly. "Absolutely nothing."

There was a pause. "I don't understand."

Her lips curved up momentarily at his words. That was one way to confuse the SIC, wasn't it? She looked up at him, biting her lip. How to say this so she wouldn't come off as strange? There probably wasn't a way . . . "You're the first mech not to care about my looks. I mean—you don't, well . . . desire me. You just don't care. You don't want my body, and it's . . . I really need someone like that in my life."

Ultra Magnus blinked at her, indeed still confused and trying to understand why this was so important to her. Using his improving dexterity, his clawed hand grabbed hers, and he frowned hard at her. "Nightstalker, there are plenty of mechs in our unit who do not lust for you."

She gave a weak laugh, dropping her helm as she actually thought about it. Of course Bulkhead didn't look at her like that. Bumblebee sure didn't, and Ratchet would sooner go blind for the rest of his life. Even Wheeljack, with all his pandering and appraisal of her looks, wasn't lewd. He respected her.

"Okay, maybe you're right," she admitted with a little shake of her head. "I just . . . I guess after Optimus, I just thought everyone looked at me like that . . ."

Ultra Magnus physically stilled across from her. "Optimus?"

Nightstalker stopped too. Looking up quickly at him, her orange optics popped as she realized—no. He HADN'T known about her and Optimus . . . Oh. Oh oh oh no no no!

She jumped to her peds, bringing herself optic level with the sitting commander as she stuttered out, "Wait—no, I mean, not like that—we didn't—he—I—it was my fault! I mean—"

Ultra Magnus waved a hand, cutting her off. His blue optics drilled into her. "You mean to tell me you went from fraternizing with Megatron to fraternizing with Optimus?"

Her lips trembled. Silver wings began to sink guiltily. "I—" She felt like she was getting crushed beneath the weight of judgment in his optics. She rubbed her arms, as if trying to rub away the fingerprints Megatron had left behind on her body and seared into her memory banks. "I—I—"

Ultra Magnus frowned, standing and drawing up to his full height as he stared aloofly down at her. "It is one thing to seep yourself in sin, but it's another to drag down someone as chaste as Optimus."

"I—I'm sorry," she stammered out, as if it was her fault. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! I didn't mean—"

He frowned down at her, and he gave a small gesture. "Dressing in indecent armor is not the way to not mean to do something. You've had ample time to change the design since you've come into the Autobot fold, yet you have done nothing."

Nightstalker felt her wingtips dip to the ground. He was right, wasn't he? She had seen how it affected Optimus, and she hadn't done a thing. But, she had kept it because Cliffjumper had liked it . . . hadn't she? Or was she trying to antagonize the others? Primus, she even DRESSED like a whore, didn't she!

"I'm sorry," she rasped in shame, curling into herself, trying to fade from existence. "I'm sorry, it was my fault, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . . . I didn't mean . . ."

"Why do you think Megatron raped you? Even when you knew better, you went crawling right back to him! You basically threw yourself at him, offered him to do it! Primus, makes me think a part of you actually wanted it."

She winced back, dropping her helm to hide the tears beading up in her optics as she dutifully took his tongue lashing. "I'm sorry," she whispered, spark withering in its chassis. "It's my fault, I won't do it again . . ."

"It's a wonder Cliffjumper wants you after that . . ." His lips slanted down as he stared in a mixture of disgust and pity at her. "You should have known better than to go running back to him! You should have—" He swore again under his breath. Venting, he pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead in exasperation before touching his audio. "Ratchet, we're ready for a ground bridge."

Nightstalker shook.

This conversation was over.

* * *

><p>Since when was Soundwave so cheeky?<p>

. . .

Had he ALWAYS been that cheeky?

Smiley-face glyphs, audio-splitting dubstep, BREAKING HIS VOW OF SILENCE?

Nightflier scrubbed his face tiredly. And on top of that, attacking with sound waves to disarm them before taking his precious time to crash his own drives. So, they were basically back to square one, but hey, maybe Megatron would like to ransom for Soundwave? His . . . offline shell, at least. But hey, he could be brought back online through an outside party, and Nightflier would have opted to bring him back online, but what for? he wouldn't know ANYTHING of use since he wiped all his drives. He'd have to jack into the Decepticon mainframe again to relearn everything he had previously known.

But Nightflier was certain he'd get a call soon. Soundwave was too valuable for Megatron NOT to want to have back. The eyes and ears of the Decepticons was a prized asset.

In need of good news, Nightflier was relieved to see Ultra Magnus and Nightstalker returning. They parted ways almost immediately, and Nightflier hurried over to Nightstalker, picking her up in a great big hug.

"Thank you SO much, Nights! You're a life saver."

She shrugged him off, walking away even before he heard her mutter, "Yeah, whatever."

Nightflier blinked as she walked off sullenly, and he sighed. Was she really THAT mad at him? He glanced over to where Ultra Magnus was moving off, and he hurried over to his commander. Trying to remain nonchalant, he asked, "So, how are you doing?"

The SIC turned his attention to his Prime, saying, "Better, Sir, thanks to the therapy your sister gave me. Your concern is appreciated."

Nightflier felt the heat of embarrassment color his cheeks red. "Slot. Well, she wasn't really supposed to tell you that . . ."

Ultra Magnus shook his head. "I already knew, Sir. It was glaringly apparent."

Nightflier winced, feeling a little more energon flood to his face. "Well, ah . . . Can't blame a mech for trying, right? Aw, c'mon, don't make fun of my concern!"

"No," Ultra Magnus said a little softer. "I appreciate it, really." Then, he frowned and vented sharply. "Nightfall, I must ask you to speak with your sister."

Nightflier blinked in surprise. "Huh?"

Ultra Magnus just shook his head. "She'll know what she needs to talk to you about."

He shifted positions awkwardly. "All right. Well, I—" He started to turn around, and he blinked, optics searching for his sister. "Where is she?"

"I haven't the faintest idea, Nightfall."

He sighed and rubbed his brow. "It's all right. I'll find her."

Heading off—and having to explain to Cliffjumper that he needed to find Nightstalker, yeah, sure, they'd talk later—he finally managed to weasel his way out of the silo without every other person grabbing him and wanting to speak with him. Waltzing around, searching for his sister, Nightflier found her—

Holy scrap. She was crying.

Hurrying over to her, he found that Boobie and Casino were with her, and he thanked the good Primus above that he had such great friends. "Nights? Nights, what's wrong?"

He knelt down in a hurry, touching her shoulder, but she just curled up tighter to herself. Boobie looked up at Nightflier. "She came out of the hangar crying, so Casino and I had to corner her. She won't say what's wrong yet, so we're just letting her cry it out first."

Nightflier sighed in defeat, pulling her close and bunching her up in his arms even though she fought some. "You guys are life savers," he admitted to the two humans with them.

Casino smiled softly, saying, "Well, we girls have got to stick together, right?"

With the help of Casino and Boobie, Nightflier was slowly able to calm his sister down to little system hiccups. Though he had to bite his glossia for a minute or two longer so her shuddering would stop, he tried to allow her time to compose herself.

"Easy, Nights . . . What's wrong?"

Nightstalker bit her lip. She knew what was wrong. She was a whore. She knew it, but no one else believed her, and if she said so, they'd just tell her she was wrong. So she did the only thing she could do.

She lied.

"I'm fine," she bluffed weakly, trying to push him away. "There's no problem."

He tightened his arm around her so she couldn't escape. "Oh, don't you try to pull that with me."

Boobie patted her leg. "Now c'mon, honey. You can't say there's nothing wrong when you're crying."

"Unless you have the Cybertronian equivalent of a period," Casino chimed in with a small joke. "Then you can cry all you want."

Her helm thunked against his shoulder, and she hid her face in his neck, unwilling to let them look at her. "Guys, it's nothing, really."

"Now quit giving me that," Nightflier chastised her gently again. He nudged her chin, but didn't force her head up. "Now fess up. What's bothering you? I'm a big brother! I'm supposed to take care of you."

Nightstalker dipped her wings and shook her head. "It's nothing . . . but, um . . . Do you think we have enough resources to, I don't know, let me change my look?"

Nightflier blinked, optics whirring wide open. "Huh? Well, yeah, sure . . . Don't like the way you look?" When she squirmed uncomfortably in his lap, Nightflier quickly backtracked with, "I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. Just feeling a change, eh?"

She nodded, trying her best to bluff her way through this. "Yeah, I just . . . want something different."

"All right, hold on, I'm calling bullshit." Casino restlessly rolled her dice in her fingers, and she frowned up at Nightstalker who was trying to sink through the ground. "I don't believe you. What's really bothering you?"

"I think I second that," Boobie said. "If you're gonna lie, girl, then lie convincingly."

When Nightstalker didn't say anything, Nightflier frowned. "Ultra Magnus sent me out here to talk to you. He realized something was wrong too. C'mon, Nights, you can tell me, I promise."

She shrank even more. Looking down, Nightstalker mumbled almost inaudibly, "I dress like a whore."

"No you don't!" Boobie snapped so suddenly that Nightstalker's wings tipped up in such a hurry they almost knocked Casino over. "That's not true! Who told you that? Ooh, I will rip them a new one!"

Nightflier just gaped. What?

While his processor chugged along slowly, trying to wrap his mind around that thought, Casino chimed in, "Nightstalker, you're perfectly beautiful. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

"But you're all wrong!" Nightstalker burst, throwing out her hands. "I DO. Optimus—when Optimus was alive, he . . . I egged him on! I knew he liked what I showed, but I didn't do anything to help, and . . ."

Nightflier's rapidly percolating mind finally made his jaw work. "Wait. You mean you . . . with Optimus?"

"No!" she exclaimed, flushing hotly and crossing her arms. "I'm not a . . . I . . . Almost . . . But it was my fault. I teased him. He couldn't help it."

"The man can ALWAYS help it," Boobie stressed angrily. She jet her jaw. "He can ALWAYS help it. And it doesn't matter how you dress. I don't care if it's how you are now, or if you're the Cybertronian equivalent of Amish, I don't care if you're walking around completely naked, you are not EVER dressing inappropriately if you're comfortable with it. All right? You aren't EVER asking for it, regardless of what you're wearing."

"What she said," Nightflier said. "But wait—What does THIS have to do with—" and he gestured aimlessly towards the main hangar. "What's going on? What . . . brought all this on?"

Nightstalker dipped her head, wings fanning nervously. "Ultra Magnus."

There was a beat of complete silence. "Ultra Magnus?" he asked, and at the same time, Boobie said, "I need a crowbar and the description of which idiot this is. He was the semi, right? When I get through with him—"

"Wait, stop," Nightflier cut in, holding up a hand. He arched a brow. "Nights?"

She flushed hotly, wings fluttering more. "It's not his fault," she tried to defend him quietly. "He's right, I—"

"No, Nights," Nightflier interrupted sternly again. "What. Did. He. Say."

She bit her lip. "That it was my fault. It was because I teased Optimus with how I dressed . . . I forced my sin on him . . . He basically said Cliffjumper shouldn't care about me since I ran right back to Megatron, and the rape was my fault—"

"Stop."

Nightflier dragged in a tense breath, almost unable to control the anger bubbling up like hot lava. For a second, he controlled himself, and then, he asked, "Is that it?"

Nightstalker nodded guiltily. "I was asking for it. Getting raped . . ."

"No you weren't," he immediately said. Gently sitting her down with the girls, he said, "Boobie, Casino, can I trust you to start talking some sense into my sister?"

"Absolutely," Boobie replied.

"Good. Now if you'll please excuse me . . ."

Heading off and leaving his sister in the trusty hands of his friends, Nightflier walked back to the hangar. And he walked all the way to Ultra Magnus and found his SIC painstakingly typing with his one good hand.

"Magnus."

He looked up. "Sir?"

Damn how tall he was to the Pit. Nightflier curled a finger. "Come here."

Ultra Magnus followed Nightflier to the table Ratchet frequently used for his work. Nightflier pointed to the floor directly next to it. "Stand there." While Ultra Magnus seemed a little confused, he did so obligingly, and Nightflier stood up on the table, bringing him nearly optic level with the mech.

"Sir?"

Nightflier pinched his brow. "Hold still."

"Yes, Sir."

Nightflier wound his wrist up, and before Ultra Magnus could register, Nightflier let his fist fly and clocked the mech directly in his jaw. The SIC actually reeled back at the force of the blow that instantly split his lip and knocked his articulators loose.

Only then did Nightflier let him have it.

"The FRAG is wrong with you?" Nightflier's optics spat fire as Ultra Magnus turned to stare in shock at the treatment he was receiving, a hand absently brushing the bleeding energon. "Don't you EVER talk like that to my sister! Don't you EVER say things like that! If you EVER say something as Primus-damned as that, I will rip you in half!" In saying so, before Ultra Magnus could gather his bearings, Nightflier launched another punch his way. Ultra Magnus stood and took it, assuming he was receiving it for some reason though he wasn't sure why.

His split lip busted more, leaving energon trickling down his jaw and from his articulators. Ultra Magnus coughed, and Nightflier completely ignored how every person in the room was staring at them, a riveted audience. "I don't give a flying frag how she dresses! She can dress however the Pit she wants! Slot, she could walk around this base clad in nothing but her protoform, and it is NOT your place to tell her how to dress! Got it?"

Ultra Magnus blinked in shock at him, managing a stunned, "Yes, Sir."

"And another thing!" he shouted, optics dilated tight with rage. "I don't care how wonderful you think Optimus Prime was, if he lusted for Nightstalker, that was his own fragging problem! NOT hers! She is perfect is exactly how the frag she is, and she doesn't have to change ANYTHING to accommodate for him! He should learn to control his own fragging spike instead of pushing himself on her! Got it?"

The second in command nodded dutifully again. "Yes, Sir."

His wings flared wide in his agitation. "And Cybertron below me, if I EVER hear you blame Megatron raping her on her again, I will rip out your glossia and chop off your other hand so they match! Got it?"

"He did WHAT?"

Ultra Magnus turned at the sound of Ratchet's enraged voice, and before he could react, a wrench slammed square in the center of his forehead. The sheer force of it sent him falling back and crashing on the ground, leaving a bleeding dent that would most likely have to receive treatment later.

"You have got to be out of your fragging MIND, Magnus!" the medic roared, that last bit of information being the straw that broke the camel's back. The medic left his work where it was, and he stalked up and grabbed the mech by the sensitive audio receptor and hauled him to his peds. "If you think you had it bad with Nightfall, you are going to wish you hadn't been born when I'M through with you."

Ultra Magnus winced as Ratchet dragged him off. The medic pointed to Jack as he went, making the young human jump out of his skin. "Jack, call your mother and have her come to the base stat. I'm afraid careful work with Nightstalker's processor has just been undone, and she needs to speak with her as soon as possible. And you!" and he wrenched Ultra Magnus's audio receptor harder, making the SIC cringe harder as Ratchet absolutely dragged the bowing mech out of the base. "You have GOT to be out of your fragging mind! Glitching miss-clock! Do you even KNOW the consequences words like that have, the effect they have on a recovering victim's mind? Nightstalker was JUST coming to grips with this, Magnus, and you fragging undid it all! ALL that therapy! Down the drain! Do you think we treated this LIGHTLY? That is MY little girl you fragged with, and I am NOT going to let it stand . . . !"

They left the vicinity of the hangar, but Ratchet's voice carried for a good while longer. Complete silence ruled the hangar save for Nightflier trying to control his breathing. Glancing across the room to Cliffjumper, he saw the mech's face was as red as his paintjob. His jaw was locked tight. And, to Nightflier's utter astonishment, he couldn't utter a WORD. He was so utterly strangled by fury that he couldn't even manage a word, and Nightflier knew in that one glance that it didn't matter if Ultra Magnus WAS his superior, the SIC was going to get it from the warrior too.

Nightflier jumped when he felt a hand land on his shoulder. He glanced up to his father. "Are you all right?"

For a moment, Nightflier didn't respond, and then, he released a breath, muttering, "Yeah . . . Hitting him felt damn good."

"He deserved it."

There was a beat of silence, and a sharp in take cut the silence. "I need to find Nightstalker," Cliffjumper finally managed, and he turned on his heel and walked out before anyone could get a word in edgewise.

* * *

><p>Though a large mech, his ped steps were quiet and steady. He came to stand before where they cuddled.<p>

"Mind if I cut in?"

Cliffjumper glanced up, and Nightstalker's helm looked up to where Dreadwing stood before them, setting sun glinting off his armor. His arms tightened around her, loath to let her go yet after he assured her there was nothing wrong with her and the rape wasn't her fault, and never would it be.

"Do I have to?"

Dreadwing shook his head. "No. But Ratchet has finished dressing down Ultra Magnus, so you might now get your own turn."

There was a pause. "I think I'll take that offer." He glanced down to Nightstalker. "Are you all right? I can leave you with Dreadwing, right?" When she nodded, Cliffjumper helped her stand up before pressing a sweet kiss to her lips. "All right. I'll be back later."

Nightstalker watched Cliffjumper disappear, and then, she glanced up to her company. He made a small gesture with his servo.

"Come. Fly with me."

Nightstalker nodded, and she followed him into the sky, transforming and taking flight. When he didn't say anything, she contacted him through their comm. links, asking, "You wanted to talk with me?"

"Not yet," he replied. "For now, we fly. Just follow me."

Though a little puzzled, Nightstalker followed his instructions. Keeping her optics on his tailfin, Nightstalker followed him where he went. He veered left; she veered left. He veered right; she veered right. He banked around, gaining speed, and so Nightstalker mimicked him, winds beginning to gust against her body. He performed several lazy barrel rolls, so Nightstalker followed suit and—

He suddenly tipped his nose up, twisting around and shooting over her head as he took off in the opposite direction. Twisting and following the Immelmann turn, Nightstalker pressed her thrusters as Dreadwing led her in an acrobatic dance in the skies. Performing inside and outside loops, Nightstalker willingly followed him where and how he chose to twist and turn. Slinky figure 8s cause the wind to caress her wings, and jagged scissors sent her spark pumping as he dove deep to the ground until he pulled up at the last second, nearly skimming the earth with his underbelly. Nightstalker followed, feeling the dust cloud follow her as she shot into the sky with him.

He worked her fairly hard, but not enough to make it hard or stressful. Eventually, they came to a stop, hovering low above the base again. She could see Cliffjumper shouting at Ultra Magnus below. As she caught her breath, she had to ask Dreadwing, "So?"

"Do you feel better?"

Truth be told . . . she DID feel better. She wasn't as tense as she had been before. Her plating was more relaxed, and her energon tanks weren't twisted in so much, and her spark was humming again. She swiveled a little. "Yeah. Yeah, I feel a lot better." Her own personal therapy—she always felt better after flying. She should have known.

There was a pause. "And I, as well . . ."

Nightstalker glanced over, almost unsure she had heard him correctly. "Dreadwing?"

He released a tight vent, and he downplayed the significance of the flight, spark bleeding every time he looked at her, the spitting image of Ampere. "I needed it as well," he told her that evening.

Nightstalker didn't question it, and other than that, he didn't say anything. Unfortunately, they were low enough that they could hear Cliffjumper's voice carrying on the wind as he poured his spark out to Ultra Magnus.

"And I KNOW you didn't understand, but you put your whole damn leg in your mouth! Primus, Ultra Magnus, you don't know the effect your words had on her! She was blaming herself for being brutally RAPED! You made her believe that she was nothing but a worthless whore, and she's not! It was never her fault what Megatron did to her! I've spent nights trying to argue to her what she's worth not just to me, but others, and it was like I was talking to her just weeks after the incident! She could barely look me in my optics, Magnus . . . !"

Nightstalker cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Did you want to talk to me, Dreadwing?"

The jet next to her tipped his wing, moving just a mite closer to her. "I just wanted to make sure you were all right, and give you the chance to relax and wind down after an emotional day."

Nightstalker paused, feeling her spark hit the ground at his thoughtfulness. "Thanks," she finally said quietly. "That's all?"

"Yes," he said to her. "I'm sure you've heard from numerous people what you are truly worth to us, so there is no need for me to reinforce how wonderful you really are."

She felt her systems warm and her spark swell with the much needed words. "Thanks for keeping it simple," she murmured back. "I needed that."

Maneuvering herself, Nightstalker positioned herself over Dreadwing and inverted herself, that way, if they had pilots, they could have been looking at each other. She heard the faintest chuckle rise from the depths of his chassis.

"You know, I like your wings," she said suddenly. "They're pretty. I wish I had four sets of wings on my back like you. I bet I could fly twice as fast, twice as far, with twice the tricks."

Her words unwittingly caused his spark to seize at the too-familiar words. He released a tight vent and inched a tiny bit closer to her, almost too close to be prudent as fliers. Her words both cut and mended. "You are so much like your mother," he breathed.

Nightstalker felt her spark flutter. "I . . . I know. You say that a lot."

"She would be proud of you."

If she had been in bipedal mode, she was sure tears would have pricked her optics. She had to clear her vocalizer to answer. "Thank you."

"No . . . Thank you, for being so strong."

Her spark swirled with the amount of emotion that pulled from her. Tipping the nose of her alt mode gently, carefully, she bumped the top of his alt mode with an artificial kiss to show her affection. This time, his chuckled was more prominent and free.

Still, when they settled back into comfortable silence, Cliffjumper's voice echoed up to them again. This time, she could hear his voice thickening with passion.

" . . . and I want you on your FACE when you apologize to her, I want your face on the ground! You don't know what we went through, what SHE went through! Magnus, I was THERE! I was there! And I—I couldn't do anything!" His voice broke as the tears pressed. "I couldn't do anything but watch as he raped her right in front of me, only a few yards away, and it wasn't just her valve, Magnus, he took her spark too! Her SPARK! Oh Primus—that—NO ONE deserves that, Magnus! Not ever!"

Nightstalker shifted, throat lumping at the sheer amount of pain overcoming Cliffjumper's voice. "Nightstalker . . ."

She swallowed, knowing what was coming. "Y-Yeah?"

For a second, Dreadwing couldn't respond. "He . . . He took your . . ."

She felt her plating tensing up again. "Yes," she whispered quietly.

She heard his in cycles hitch beneath her. Then, he veered down sharply, and Nightstalker felt her spark jump as she followed him down. She thought he was heading for Ultra Magnus—to pummel the bot, to do something horrible to him, Nightstalker wasn't sure what—but he transformed and landed heavily at the outside edge of the base. Following suit, Nightstalker landed next to him, stammering, "D-Dreadwing, I—"

Before she could say anything more, he had knelt and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. "He took your spark?" he repeated on a rasp. When Nightstalker nodded, Dreadwing looked down at her chassis, and Nightstalker swore she saw something break in the back of his optics. Immediately she felt herself enveloped in a massive hug, and she felt his shoulders shake suspiciously.

She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. "Dreadwing?"

"No one should have to endure that," she heard him rasp in her audio. His arms tightened protectively around her, and she heard him suck in a sharp breath. "That innocence should have never been stolen."

Nightstalker swallowed, leaning close as her arms were pinned. "Cliffjumper gave it back to me."

If possible, the crushing hug tightened even more. He quaked, but Nightstalker couldn't be sure if he was crying or not because she didn't hear the sobs. She closed her optics, trying to swallow around the thickness in her throat as old wounds began to heal over for a second time.

Footfalls brought someone else into their presence. Squeezed tight against Dreadwing's chassis, Nightstalker couldn't see him, but she heard his voice quiet and humbled. "I need to speak to Nightstalker, if you please."

At first, Dreadwing's arms constricted, unwilling to let her into his presence again. But Nightstalker pressed softly against him to be set free, so he slowly released her. If there had been tears, they were missing now. But he pressed his helm against hers in a last show of affection before his gaze shuttered to the complete opposite as he glared as black as death at the mech, promising to cut the energon out of the mech without any words at all.

Ultra Magnus shifted uncomfortably at the glare, but the instant Nightstalker turned around to him, he fell on his knees and proceeded to press his face to the ground as he plead, "Nightstalker, I am sorry. I truly am. Please, forgive me. I didn't mean what I said."

Filled with conflicting emotions seesawing back and forth from an emotional day, Nightstalker tried, "Ultra Magnus, c'mon, get up off the ground, you don't need to—"

"Yes I do," he interrupted her before she could cushion the rest of his punishment. "Nightstalker, I am SORRY. I did not realize . . . the true extent . . . And I still do not know the full extent of what happened to you . . . but it has been put in a clearer light than before. My words were cruel. Uncalled for. I didn't even allow you to explain. And such a thing is NOT your fault. I'm sorry."

Her spark swelled with compassion. Coming up to him, she grabbed his shoulder, trying to haul him up by his pit. "C'mon, Ultra Magnus. Stop it. I get it, it's fine—"

"No it is NOT, Nightstalker," he interrupted again. He refused to lift his helm from the ground. "Do not try to defend me from my mistakes. I—"

"Well, that's just it," she cut in. "It was just a mistake. And I know you're sorry, there's no need to hold yourself this way. It's fine. I forgive you. Now GET UP before you embarrass me even more."

Reluctantly, the SIC lifted his head, and at her stubborn pulling, sat up. Dreadwing still glared, still kept his arms crossed, but he turned on his heel, letting them have their moment.

Nightstalker's spark softened at the sight of the dried energon on Ultra Magnus's face from where her brother and father had hit him. Reaching up, her thumb brushed some flecks off of his forehead, and he winced at her touch. She sighed, grabbing his broken, new hand and pulling.

"Come here."

His clawed hand closed around hers as he managed to find his peds again, and Nightstalker led him into the hangar. People looked at them as she brought him in, but no one said anything, just stared. Nightstalker brought him into the medical bay, sitting him on the berth before grabbing a cloth and wetting it. Standing on the berth for reach, she dabbed at his split lip.

No one said a word at her ministrations, and she didn't defend them. She let them speak for themselves.

Getting the dent out of the front of his helm was tricky, and painful for him, but she managed to get it out and clean him of his energon. And, to top it all off and to let him know that he was truly forgiven, she sprang a surprise hug on him before he could leave, thoroughly flustering the commander as he brusquely excused himself.

As Nightstalker cleaned up her mess, she sighed to herself, wings dipping tiredly. It had been such an eventful day. As she tucked away the last of the medical instruments she had used, she felt a gentle hand grab her wrist.

Ratchet knelt and turned her towards him. His overshadowed optics flicked up and down her. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly.

She nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine."

He released a guilty gust of air. "I'm sorry. I let myself get wrapped up in the offender instead of taking care of my patient. My daughter."

Her spark warmed at the sound of those words. Her lips tipped up slightly at his remorse. "You're not called Ratchet the Hatchet for nothing," she teased him gently.

He vented heavily, and he collected her close, choosing to knead between her wings to relax her when he felt her tension. They cuddled quietly in the medical bay, and the full impact of the day's feelings began to drain Nightstalker as she leaned against Ratchet. Wings dipping tiredly, Nightstalker felt her throat tighten again. For some reason, water began to bead up in her optics.

"Hey, Ratchet?"

She cleared her voice when it quavered. Ratchet did the same before he answered. "Yes, Nights?"

A shuddering breath left her as she fought back her overwhelmed tears. "I really have a lot of people who love me, don't I?"

His arms tightened to nearly crushing. "Of course you do," he rasped back. He kissed the side of her helm, holding her close. "And you always will. We're your family, Nights. We won't ever let you go."

"And you won't either, will you?"

He gave a small laugh. "Of course not."

She curled up into him, hitching up her legs, and his arm immediately came beneath her to support her. "Good." Balled up and tiny, cradled in the strength of his arms that she craved so much, Nightstalker nuzzled her helm to him. She sighed. "Ratchet?"

"Yes?"

She could almost feel the warmth of his spark behind his chassis doors. "I haven't really said it too often, but . . . I . . . I love you." Her arms tightened around him. She smiled a silly little smile, trying to burrow closer to him. "A whole bunch."

There was a moment, and then, she felt a finger tickle her side. Squealing when that bashful tickle became a full assault, Nightstalker kicked until she was on her back, almost unable to breathe around her laughter, a healing and empowering sound as Ratchet grinned at her.

He nuzzled her helm again as she struggled with her giggles.

"I love you too, Nightstalker."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Let's appreciate how stupid Fli-Ni was. If he had let Nights come on the mission, this entire epidemic could have been avoided! But, let's also remember this beautiful scene: **

**_._**

**_They stood. After an awkward moment, Nightstalker finally managed, "Yes?" The word cracked nervously from her throat._**

_**Her word loosened his vocals immediately. "Nightstalker—"**_

**_"I'm sorry!" she burst, cutting him off. A blush of heat covered her cheeks, and she shook her head. "S-Sorry for practically—I mean, I pretty much just made it worse—egged it on—"_**

**_"Nightstalker, stop."_**

**_Her mouth gawked like a fish for a second before she closed it. Optimus vented heavily and lifted a servo to pinch his brow._**

**_Finally, he said, "It is not your fault. Nightstalker, I am the one who is sorry. My behavior—was inexcusable. Please, forgive me for overstepping my boundaries."_**

**_Nightstalker paused before saying, "Okay, forgiven, but . . . Can you tell me where that came from? I . . . just didn't expect it coming from a mech like you."_**

**_She heard something hitch in his systems. He rocked back on his heels with a troubled grumble before admitting so quietly she thought she had imagined it, "You are a beautiful femme."_**

**_Nightstalker paused again. Slowly opening and closing her wings, she contemplated his words. "More than beautiful?"_**

**_His hands clenched into fists. "Irresistible," he rasped._**

**_Another touch of heat singed her cheeks. Great. Good Primus, she should have realized after that last stunt—Primus, how long had it been that he had been fighting that . . . ?_**

**_"Can I help?" When Optimus lifted his head with wide optics, incredulous, she blushed brightly. "N-Not like that!" she stuttered to ease his worry. She waved her hands in a negative. "I—I mean, is it the black? Or should I change my armor? You know, cover up more—"_**

**_"Nightstalker," Optimus's pained voice interrupted, "you do not need to change the way you are to accommodate for me."_**


	66. Needed Laughter

**Author's Note:**

**Due to how LONG this chapter was becoming, I've chopped it into two portions, so you'll probably get an update sometime in the middle of the week.**

**On top of that, thank you very much to all my reviewers! You guys are awesome, and I can't wait to hear from you again! :D Have some internet cookies! *throws cookies***

* * *

><p>After Nightstalker's hysterical fit of screaming in the night, Nightflier had been sure he would never go back to sleep. Just the memory of it, the recurring nightmare, made her scream like that? Shivers tingled down his back. He couldn't even begin to imagine how horribly she had screamed when Megatron had been in the act of that depraved deed.<p>

And yet, recharge he did, if only to wake from his own sleep violently thrashing from the flames consuming him. Hot and sticky with sweat in the early morning, Nightflier staggered to his peds, leaving the berth rooms entirely. He needed some space, space that wasn't occupied with others.

Stepping out into the chill air of the morning dusk, Nightflier sighed, opening his vents and letting the hot air billow out and the cool air to cycle in his sweltering systems. The sun had yet to come up yet, the grey-blues of the sky having yet to release the star into the air, the lingering darkness a hollow echo of his past. Striding to the edge of the base, Nightflier stared out across the dunes, the sand ethereal and barely stirred in the brisk winds, indecipherable lumps against a flat pane of horizon.

It was . . . He hesitated on the word. Dare he say it? Peaceful. And it had been quite some time since Nightflier had felt so peaceful. The constant strife he had combated the second he came upon Earth had finally abated long enough for him to consider his place in the world without any preconceived notions and a clear processor, uncluttered from the distractions from the day.

And the first thing on his mind? Nightflier's lip curled up ruefully. He missed those crazy Protectobots. He wondered how they were doing back on Cybertron. Did they realize yet that Shockwave was off planet? Most likely. Even so, they would jump on this chance for reconnaissance on his base to scavenge and root.

He doubted they would find anything of much use. Shockwave may be mad with his experimentation, but he wasn't sloppy. He bet the place was pristine and empty, devoid of anything of importance but the residue of his findings. He could almost hear Blades stringing a line of colorful swears.

Reaching out into his spark, Nightflier searched for First Aid. His brother was quick to respond with reassurance, and there was a conflicting seesaw of faint emotion as he tried to convey something, but the message was stilted. Unable to decipher what the mech was trying to say to him, Nightflier just sent back more reassurance; everything was all right. It was all going to be all right, wasn't it?

Love and relief swamped over him, a warm comfort unlike any he had ever had before.

Again, Nightflier's lips tipped up as he stood at the edge of the base, watching the slow influx of dimming darkness and growing color of morning. What would they think of him now? Little Bit-Brain, all grown up into a Prime? He could just see the shock on Hot Spot's features that Nightflier was now HIS superior! And Groove, cool Groove just waving him off and telling him he always knew he had it in him. Oh, First Aid would glitch! Blades would hate every second of it, and Streetwise? Heh, he'd have to be sure Streetwise wouldn't try to sell him on any half-baked tips to help him out!

Nightflier's mouth pulled a little more as he dwelled on his family. They would get along great here. He was sure all the bots would love them, though he'd have to separate Wheeljack and Blades. They hadn't even met yet, but Nightflier was sure he could smell an angry, dangerous rivalry brewing. First Aid had always wanted to meet Ratchet. His spark melted at the thought. To finally provide his brother with the joy of meeting the mech he had idolized all his life . . . A rueful chuckle spilled from him before he could stop it. And to see the dumbfounded look on his face when Ratchet expressed HIS impressments when it came to Nightflier's wings.

He bet they would love Nightstalker as well. And now that he was dwelling on it, he realized exactly how much he wanted Nightstalker to meet First Aid. His gentle compassion would be just the right fit to her personality. He could only imagine how phenomenally well they would get along.

"You're more handsome when you're content."

Nightflier's wings twitched up in surprise, and he turned from the waxing light to see Arcee coming towards him with soft, barely audible footsteps. She was smiling gently, and Nightflier blushed a little for getting caught in his musings.

"Good morning," he greeted her as she came to stand by him. "I didn't wake you when I left, did I?"

Arcee shook her head, crossing her arms. "No. I was already awake."

His wings relaxed again in her presence, soothed by her company. "I didn't want to disturb you." He sent a wayward glance to her. "Couldn't sleep?"

The edge of her lips curved as she tilted her head up to him. "It was just an early-rising morning. No special occasion, but it's nice to be alone with you again."

Nightflier chuckled, the sound husky and deep, like thunder and smoke. "And without our nanny hovering over our shoulders."

Arcee laughed too, voice a little huskier with the rough of morning, but no less sultry. "I suppose we can cut him a little slack. He did make an aft of himself and have one awful day yesterday. By the way, you have a mean right hook."

He grinned. A playful elbow hit her side. "Wait a second—you called me handsome."

She attempted a look of nonchalance, shrugging her shoulders and tilting her chin, but she elbowed him back. "That I did."

"I think that's hot. You know what else is hot?"

Arcee immediately rolled her optics, anticipating his flat response. "What?"

"The sun." He snickered when she gave him an incredulous look. "YOU—Now you, you are anything but hot. You are beautiful, stunning, lovely, DIVINE—"

She shoved him with an unwilling grin, shaking her head. Blue optics ringed with striking purple lanced beauty through him. "Oh, you are absolutely laying it on thick, aren't you?"

"No I'm not!" In saying so, he shoved her back just a little harder, making her stagger a step to prove that she couldn't push him around. He waggled his brows at her in the brisk early morning air. "Hah, or would you rather me insult you? You ugly, knock-off, dull finish—"

"Oh, you are asking for it!"

Nightflier laughed a warm, honest laugh as Arcee tackled him to the ground. Briefly falling in a tangle of limbs, Nightflier felt Arcee dig her knee into one of his thighs, searching with her hands to pin him. With a short struggle, Nightflier fought against her, wrenching her wrists and grunting when she forced all of her weight onto her knee, flinging her off. Lunging over her, he yelped in surprise when she feinted and wriggled out from beneath him. Before he could reorient himself properly, he felt her weight thrown across his back and arms pinned his shoulders to the ground.

Turning his head to the side so he wasn't swallowing the sand, Nightflier cried indignantly, "Hey, wait a second! This was just a fluke; I can pin you!"

Arcee laughed the sound of a vixen with a saucy, "Oh really? I bet you can't."

Nightflier grinned. "I bet I can!"

Flicking his wings up with force, one of them clipped her jaw and sent her reeling off of him. Twisting and jumping at her, Nightflier grunted when her peds planted on his chassis and shoved up, sending him flying over her. Tumbling across the sand and lunging back towards her, he met her in the middle, grappling her arms and she, his.

Nightflier used his greater strength to hurl the smaller femme down on her back. Before he could drop on top of her, a ped flashed up his way, and he jerked back with a shout. Instead of his face, her foot found purchase with his shoulder, knocking him flat on his back. Before he could get back up, Arcee had flung herself over him again, hands pinning his shoulders to the ground.

She arched a sassy brow. "Pinned you again."

He wrinkled his nose even though they were both laughing. "Best two out of three."

Arcee grinned, laughing a little more as she leaned down, nuzzling her helm with his. "You've already lost if we do that."

"Yeah, well I know I can pin you."

"No you can't."

"Yes I can—"

He didn't know how they had kissed, or really when it happened or what possessed him to, but he fell into it with unquestioning fluidity. Caressing her lips with his own, Nightflier reached up a hand, grasping behind her neck to force her closer to him. Her servos, pinning him with delicious force, slid inwards to grip his chassis at his collar, fingers digging desirably into him. His other arm hooked around her shoulders, rolling over her and deepening the kiss a fraction, wrenching a soft moan from her chest.

They parted, Nightflier's spark racing at the passions she so effortlessly drew from him. His lips curled as they nudged helms. "Pinned ya," he whispered breathlessly.

"Doesn't count," she murmured back, kissing up the center of his neck.

A sound he couldn't place escaped his mouth, close to a whimper, perhaps? "Of course it does."

"You still lost."

"No I didn't."

"Yeah you did, two against one."

"I thought those didn't count—"

And then he was kissing her again, a servo venturing to feather soft touches down her arms, intoxicated by the magnetism that drew them together. His wings dipped with desire, but his undoing came when HER servos began to explore, tracing down his back until her fingers forced themselves beneath his armor, digging into his sensitive new protoform. He groaned into her, hips bucking impulsively against her pelvis.

They both immediately paused, taking this thought in, and finally, it was Nightflier who cleared his vocalizer of static and managed to rasp, "Um . . . Sorry about that. I—my back is REALLY sensitive since I got my protoform back. I mean, when it was matted with the burns, I couldn't feel much, so everything's really—"

She cut him off by kissing him again and trailing her fingers down just slightly enough to tease him cruelly. Nightflier choked on a gasp, immediately jerking her body up to him to press their hips, navels, and chassis flush against each other. The prickling heat of friction spread to his interfacing panel, and, with a last slide of his glossia against Arcee's, he drew back with stuttering vents.

He smirked a little. "Well, if you want it like that, I suppose we'll have to lock ourselves up somewhere." In saying so, he waggled his brows at her.

"Well then," Arcee said suggestively, handing her wrists together to him, "take me where you will."

With a broad and rakish grin, Nightflier leapt to his peds and reached down to take her hands and help her to her feet. However, the second she had found equilibrium, he swooped down, dug his shoulder into her waist, and flipped her over his back.

She squeaked indignantly at the treatment, legs flailing for one instant before they settled. She gave an unladylike grunt. "Absolutely romantic," she remarked sarcastically, but her irritation was ruined with the slightest hint of a laugh. "I feel like a sack of potatoes."

"Well, I suppose I can make it more romantic." Ducking her back down into his arms, he smiled at her, optics twinkling with mischievous teasing. "Does bridal style suit you better?"

"Absolutely," she agreed. Her fingers traced illicit little circles in his chassis, managing to distract him from even walking straight. Arcee glanced to the hangar that had yet to be in use that morning. "Don't hit my head on the door," she warned him helpfully as he came up to the entrance.

"Don't worry! I'm not gonna hit your head."

Surprisingly, it was a lot harder to manipulate the door with his hands full than he realized it was going to be. Arcee offered to help, but Nightflier told her not to as this was romantic, right? She just laughed at him as he struggled, but he eventually manhandled the door open. And promptly bonked Arcee's helm against the doorjamb.

"Smooth."

He blushed sheepishly. "It's not my greatest forte."

Arcee chuckled at him as he used his butt to shut the door behind them, and bringing her to an open section of the room between the land rovers, Nightflier laid her down much gentler than he had taken her across the threshold. He kissed her immediately, unable to deny his excitement, as well as how much fun he was having. That was a good word for it. He liked her enough that they were having fun.

As he decided to explore more interesting places, he left behind her mouth and instead headed up her jaw, intending on nibbling on her audio receptors. He heard her throaty chuckle and felt her hands slide around his slim waist. He felt his wings twitch when she tickled their base.

"Now," she hummed softly, taking in his affections with delighted ease, "it's common knowledge a seeker's wings holds lots of hot spots. Shall we find out where yours are kept?"

Heat blossomed in his navel and his cheeks. Nightflier gave a small, nervous chuckle as he wondered where to touch her. "If you think you can find them," he replied. Was her chassis too forward? Then, remembering where they would be by the end of this, realized how stupid and naïve he was being, so he went ahead and cupped her round chassis, circuits buzzing at the thought of the soft mounds hidden beneath.

As he nipped at her audio receptors, Arcee slid her fingers up the bottom edge of his wings; he shivered particularly hard when she reached the center, feeling out his hot spot, but that was nothing compared to the embarrassingly loud moan he gave when her fingers pinched his winglets.

Her lips curved devilishly at the reaction as she fiddled with them. Nightflier panted sharply, voice weak and his own touches faltering without his concentration. "I see your wingtips are particularly sensitive . . ."

Not to be outdone, Nightflier dipped his fingers into her wheel wells, getting an answering cry to leap from her vocalizer and her back to arch. He chuckled, a sexy sound based on the octave lower that his voice dipped to. "Two can play at that game."

Arcee just rolled her optics and grinned at him, fondling over his wings some more with curiosity. "I'm still going to top."

His mouth that had been kissing its way down her neck towards her chassis stopped suddenly, and he popped up immediately in indignation, optics widening. "Are you crazy? Don't be ridiculous; of course I'M going to top!"

"No you're not," Arcee berated him. Just to further patronize him, her fingers dug beneath his back plating again, drawing a gritted groan and a shudder from him. "VIRGIN."

"Not a virgin."

"Might as well be."

"Still doesn't matter," Nightflier said with a huff, and he kissed her again, tongue delving inside her hot mouth and sliding against hers. His internal temperatures rose again at the slick, steamy taste. "I'm still topping."

"I bet you're not," she breathed breathily back into his audio, finding another hot spot in his wings and pressing her fingers there. Nightflier twitched, interface paneling burning hot as he ground against her hips. His adventuring hands dipped to her waist, niggling beneath her plating to the wiring. She jerked and he finally won his first soft moan from her. His mouth tipped up rakishly again as they extended the foreplay just a bit longer.

"I bet I am . . ."

* * *

><p>Though she knew he was busy, she was sure he would spare a bit to talk with her. She had considered waiting to talk about it with June, but . . . no. She needed to talk to Ratchet. Someone who understood exactly what happened to her and knew exactly what she was about. Nightstalker's mouth tugged half-heartedly. Hopefully, before all the distractions of the day hit, Ratchet wouldn't be TOO irritable and would be able to hold his temper in check.<p>

Reaching up, she tapped his hip. "Ratchet? Can I talk to you for a minute?"

The medic glanced down from where he was booting up his computer for another hard day's work, and his optics similarly brightened at the sight of her even as they drew a little tight from hearing the gravity weighing her voice. "Good morning, Nightstalker." He reached down, squeezing her shoulder with a warm and strong hand. "What's troubling you?"

"Well . . . I . . . Wait, let's set down first."

Ratchet just nodded, and they sat down on one of the low tables. Kicking her legs nervously, Nightstalker wondered how to broach the subject. Drawing in a stabilizing vent, her fluttering wings must have given away her unease. Ratchet touched her shoulder again, giving her a small squeeze. A little, supportive smile tried to curl his lips, but she saw the worry overshadowing his optics.

"Are you all right? It's Megatron again, isn't it."

Nightstalker blinked wide. Her nightmare—she had almost forgotten about it by now. "No, no that's fine. I'm fine, I just . . ." She drew a breath, trying to sort out her thoughts. "Ratchet, can you promise me NOT to get angry?"

His optics flickered before he nodded. "I promise not to get angry."

She huffed in relief. "Okay. Well, I've been thinking about what Ultra Magnus said."

His hand dropped from her shoulder so he could cross his arms. "Yes?"

The amount of information cycling behind his optics was disconcerting. Nightstalker felt her energon tanks hit her peds at the unreadable expression he wore for this occasion, already clamping up. She arched a brow weakly, shrinking back a little. "You promised you wouldn't get angry," she reminded him at the risk of getting him even more irritated.

He gave her a nod, a little too curt to be convincing. "I promise I won't get angry."

Nightstalker nodded, biting her bottom lip. "Okay . . ." Sucking in a breath to bolster her courage, she said, "I know the rape's not my fault, but I think what led up to it WAS my fault."

She watched his lips thin to a razor edge. The edge of his optic twitched, a minute detail, and anyone would have missed it if they hadn't known the mech as well as she did. The second he opened his mouth, Nightstalker jumped in quickly, spilling out her explanation before he could squish her argument.

"Wait! I mean, if I had stayed at the Autobot base like I was supposed to instead of going out after Megatron, he wouldn't have had a way to get his claws on me in the first place, right?" She fluttered her wings once, fast, wingtips dipping the more she went on. "I mean, sure, Ultra Magnus was being a jerk in the way he told me all of that, but he DID make a point when he said that I just ran right back to Megatron. A-And if I hadn't went back, Cliffjumper wouldn't have gotten hurt, and I would have never been in harm's way in the first place . . ."

Ratchet's lips pressed mulishly. For a minute, he didn't respond, but she could see his thoughts percolating behind his gaze as he tried to think this through. Finally, a huge blast of air vented from him, and he reached a hand up, scrubbing his face.

"I really wish you wouldn't keep trying to find ways to pin the blame on yourself."

She kicked her legs some more, looking down at her clasped hands in her lap. "I'm not trying to . . ."

A soft groan caught in the back of Ratchet's vocalizer. He dropped his helm in his palm, trying to wrap his mind around the implications she was presenting him with. Nightstalker let her gaze self-consciously drift over the room. Soundwave was still knocked out cold and strapped to the table, Smokescreen poking his fingers and trying to act tough. Bumblebee was trying to dissuade him, twittering nervously behind him about how he really shouldn't be doing that. Cliffjumper was laughing, as per his usual.

On the far end was Ultra Magnus, clearly irritated at Wheeljack for something else, but the mechs were actually talking it through quite civilized; Nightstalker couldn't even hear their voices from where she sat. And talking to Bulkhead was—

Dreadwing?

Her mind stuttered and stopped on them. That was . . . interesting. For a fleeting moment, she wondered what exactly they could be talking about, but Ratchet huffed next to her and finally looked up.

"Nightstalker, this is NOT your fault," he said seriously to her, clearly having tamed his temper in the lull. "No matter how you ended up within Megatron's reach, it was by HIS hand that the rape happened."

"But you can't deny that I just handed myself over to him," Nightstalker pointed out.

Ratchet pinched his brow, frowning. "No, I cannot deny that inevitably, you put yourself in harm's way. But that still does not change the fact that the rape was not your fault. In fact—" and he paused suddenly. Nightstalker felt her brows cinch at the look on his face, the way his lip plates thinned again and something ticked in his jaw. "It wasn't even your fault that you went back to Megatron."

Nightstalker stared at him for a full beat. "Ratchet. That makes absolutely no sense."

She watched his throat work. "It's not your fault . . . because it's Optimus's."

The mention of his name, much less trying to blame it on him instead, made her confused between being hurt or angry. Maybe she was both. "Don't say that!" she snapped at him in an undertone, trying to keep too much attention from focusing on them. "It's bad enough he's gone, don't try to dig him deeper!"

Ratchet's hands landed on her shoulders, shaking her just slightly. "Nightstalker, stop. This time, allow ME to explain."

Though she pursed her lips, she crossed her arms and let him.

Ratchet hung his head for a second before sucking in a vent and looking her in her optics. "Nightstalker, the only reason you went back to Megatron was because you truly thought there was something worth saving in him. You thought you were doing right, even if it was wrong. What you needed was someone to tell you what was right, to speak up and tell you not to do that to yourself. And Optimus . . ." Nightstalker blinked at the same time something seemed to crack down the back of Ratchet's spine.

"He failed you," Ratchet told her quietly. "He let you go, KNOWING that it was wrong for you to go, and allowed you to keep fraternizing with him even knowing the dangers."

Nightstalker bit her lip and tucked her head. Her wings sank, and she felt the regret trying its way back up again, seeping onto her insides like a coating of lava. "I just . . . I don't want to keep blaming him . . ."

Ratchet chucked her chin gently up, bringing her optics level with his. "You can't protect everyone from their mistakes," he said quietly. "Even the greatest have their faults."

Lips wobbling a little, Nightstalker sank into his open embrace, cuddling up close to his chassis. The tension in her sank away when he kneaded that special spot between her wings. "Thanks, Dad."

His strong arms wrapped around her. "My pleasure," he replied softly.

Nightstalker tried to fight a small smile, but it made its way out. "And thank you for keeping your temper."

She heard him grunt, almost a concealed laugh, and say, "Not without effort . . ."

"Well, I appreciate your—"

"Has anyone seen Nightfall?"

Nightstalker and Ratchet looked up to see Ultra Magnus standing arms and legs akimbo, strict frown roving over the base that was absent of her brother. Nightstalker poked Ratchet's chassis, whisper-singing, "Someone's in TROUBLE . . ."

Ratchet snorted. "As he always is."

Ultra Magnus huffed, muttering, "I'm going to have to find him again . . ." and then, he paused. His gaze swept the room again, counting the bots inside. Dreadwing glanced over at the same time that Ultra Magnus scowled.

"Out of all the IRRESPONSIBLE things . . . !"

Coming to the same conclusion that Ultra Magnus had, Dreadwing quickly stepped up to the commander, saying, "Sir, I know it is not my place to ask it of you, but please leave them be. While he is Prime, he is also young, and he hasn't spoken to you of the stress he's been feeling lately."

Ultra Magnus vented shortly, irritation already spiked. "Regardless, we need him here. It is paramount that we contact Megatron as soon as possible in regards to Soundwave's ransom to hopefully give us a leg up in this war."

Dreadwing's back stiffened just the slightest, treading the deep waters in defense of his son and trying to keep in mind Ultra Magnus's rank—a rank he lived and breathed by. "Sir, there is more to this life than just the rule book. This is good for him."

Ultra Magnus scowled. "And there is more to this argument than you understand."

His cold blue optics flashed. "The Matrix of Leadership?"

He froze the SIC abruptly. Ultra Magnus stared at him, cobalt optics digging into him before he turned sharply on his heel and strode from the base.

"Ultra Magnus—Wait!"

Dreadwing took one step before he stopped himself short. His fist clenched a bit helplessly. It wasn't his place. And, his standing with the Autobots was still shaky, so he couldn't outright disobey the SIC or who knew where he could end up.

But he DID do the only thing he could.

* * *

><p>Cycling sharply, Nightflier tried to control the buzzing high of his systems after such a powerful overload. Servos shaking, his fingers feathered back up Arcee's chassis, and he circled his thumb against her cheek. Then, flopping his helm back and shuttering his optics, he gave a half groan, half sigh.<p>

"Best two out of three."

Above him, Arcee chuckle, leaning over him to press a kiss to his lips. "I like the sound of that," she purred suggestively.

When Arcee lifted her hips, allowing him to slip out, Nightflier caught a whimper before it could escape and moaned softly. He flexed his wings, pinned a little uncomfortably to the floor where he laid flat on his back beneath Arcee. When had she gotten the drop on him and topped? He opened his mouth to respond, and then his optics popped at how quickly Dreadwing suddenly invaded his spark with a warning.

Shock poured into Nightflier's systems. Arcee, watching the unholy panic rise in the back of his optics, stared.

He whipped up to a sitting position so suddenly that he almost knocked helms with her. "Slot, Arcee, Ultra Magnus is coming!"

She jumped up to her peds with him, closing her interfacing paneling and exploding, "All right, well DON'T panic. Don't panic, all right? We're good. Here—"

Nightflier closed his interfacing equipment as Arcee hurriedly grabbed an old sweater forgotten in the back of one of the land rovers, and she wiped up the transfluid from both them and any left on the floor before shoving it back and out of site. "And see?" she said again, spreading her arms for him to see, "Since it was a quickie, we're not even undressed. We're fine."

Nightflier blinked, sputtering spark slowly falling back down to a bearable level. "We're fine," he repeated. He paused, listening to his father. "We lucked out. Magnus is just starting to come our way. Dreadwing's watching him."

Arcee nodded, grinned, and shook her head. "Right. I'll scram before he—"

"Wait! I've got an even BETTER idea!"

Arcee blinked.

Nightflier grinned rakishly. "He's got an idea of what we were SUPPOSEDLY doing, right?"

"We WERE doing it."

Nightflier flapped his hands. "Sure. Let's just make this as awkward for him as possible." When she blinked again, he grinned, and before she could stop it, Nightflier threw back his head and gave the loudest, most obscene, "ARCEE! DEAR PRIMUS, RIGHT THERE!" that he could, successfully making heat gorge into her cheeks and a sputter to burst from her lips.

Nightflier winked at her, and she pressed her lips, fighting back a grin and deciding to Pit with it all. With an equally orgasmic, "OH, NIGHTFLIER! YES! YES! PLEASE, LIKE THAT!" they sent the most wrong message they could to him.

"UHH, ARCEE! SPANK ME, I'VE BEEN A BAD BOY!"

She snorted on a laugh, covering her mouth to muffle the sound. "YOU'RE MY BAD BOY! AH—UH, HARDER!"

He moaned like he had in the throes of ecstasy. "FRAG ME, ARCEE, PLEASE—!"

The door was thrown open, and it took all of Nightflier's self control NOT to burst out laughing when Ultra Magnus wasn't even in the doorway.

"You. Both. Dress. Out. Now."

It was Arcee that decided to throw the cherry on top. "Did you want to join us, Sir?"

That broke the straw on the camel's back. Ultra Magnus took a slamming step into the doorway and fixing his glare on them that could have burned through steel. "Are you out of your fragging—"

He stopped mid-sentence when they were both completely dressed and, initially, unassuming. But then, both Arcee and Nightflier burst into hysterical laughter at the duped look on Ultra Magnus's face.

Nightflier couldn't help it—he was HOWLING. Doubling up, he managed between his hysterics, "Arcee—Arcee, I can't believe—YOU ACTUALLY SAID THAT!"

From the doorway, the icy glare that fixed on them from the tall, broad, absolutely BROILING furious Ultra Magnus only seemed to make the situation even more funny. Arcee didn't press her luck by pushing his buttons more, but Nightflier gasped out, "What—What did you—THINK we were doing!" before that sent them both into stitches again.

Even worse, both Nightflier and Arcee knew it was taking them too long to control their glee when the black storm was just across the room. Stifling it down to painful giggles, Ultra Magnus waited, arms crossed as intimidating as possible and finger tapping for the mirth to die.

Finally, Nightflier wiped the lubricant from his optics and managed a tight, "Arcee, you are dismissed from—" he choked on a laugh—"DUTY."

Snickers sputtered from Arcee's lips immediately as she tucked her head and slipped past Ultra Magnus, but the second she was free from the line of fire her laughter began to shriek out again.

Try as he might, Nightflier was able to squish the laughter, but he couldn't do anything about the impish little grin even when he pressed his lips as tightly together as he could. Coming to stand at attention, he managed one word, tight from holding back laughter.

"Sir?"

A strangled vent worked its way out of the immobile SIC. His tapping finger didn't stop as he surveyed the completely unrepentant Prime who was STILL struggling to hold back his amusement. Nightflier stared back, lips quivering against the laughter as he waited for whatever Ultra Magnus was going to say. Instead, the instant he opened his mouth, Nightflier jumped forward while waving his hands.

"Wait, wait, wait, okay, I'm sorry—" but he was still laughing, shaking against the laughter. "Sorry about punking you like that, but—Magnus, you really are TOO EASY to pick on!" Before he could stop it, he was snickering again, tears beading up for a second round.

Finally, Ultra Magnus blasted an extremely perturbed vent from his systems. "Nightfall—"

"No no no," he hurried to say, "I'm really sorry, I really am, and it's not going to happen again, all right?" Nightflier looked up at his SIC in the effort to meet his optics to make the promise more authentic, but his lips twitched at the sight of his pinched features and flat lips and testy optics. He couldn't help the silent laughter shaking his shoulders, and the choked, "Cybertron below me, you have got the BEST expression on your face . . . !"

A tired sigh escaped the SIC. He pinched his brow between his fingers. "Nightfall, please control yourself."

"All right! All right, hold on."

Trying his best to do as asked, Nightflier took several deep breaths, making sure that even his stomach was relaxed from clenching so hard. However, he looked back up at Ultra Magnus, caught a second little fit, and had to fight those down too.

Finally, after making sure all the laughter was gone for good, Nightflier look back up, and this time he smiled sheepishly, putting a hand on his head. "Seriously, Ultra Magnus, it won't happen again. And I can't help but pick on you—it's how I show my love. You've SEEN me with Nightstalker."

Ultra Magnus frowned, dropping his servos to his hips as he looked down on the small mech before him. "Regardless," he tried, "it is unbecoming of a commander, much less, the PRIME to pursue activities like this at times like this. I've been looking for you all morning."

Nightflier shook his head, and gestured him down. "Come here." When Ultra Magnus hiked a brow, Nightflier gestured harder, saying, "Get DOWN here, Ultra Magnus, I can't talk to you when you're towering way up there."

Though clearly a little reluctant, Ultra Magnus knelt down to his knees to be on a closer level with his Prime. When he was settled, Nightflier reached forward, grabbed his shoulders, and looked him right in the optics.

"I need to tell you exactly how much I appreciate you."

The reaction was exactly what Nightflier was expecting. Ultra Magnus's optics popped wide in surprise, a flash of complete confusion marring his face before he managed to school his expression again.

Without missing a beat, Nightflier continued, "You do more in a week than I can do in my entire lifetime. You are the absolute backbone of this little group we've got—barring Ratchet, of course—but YOU." He waggled a finger at him. "You keep us running like we've actually got some function now that Ratchet's busy with other things. You keep the scheduling straight, inventory records, off-duty times, mediating disputes, and you'll mete out fair and proper punishments—minus me, of course, and you can let Arcee slide this time."

Nightflier tried to shake him when he seemed too stunned to react, but he met an immobile wall. "And on top of that, you've put up with ME. I mean, ME! You've helped me from the beginning, first of all, simply CATCHING me when I was falling to my death, and now every time I screw up as a commander, you're catching me now too. You helped me when I didn't have my wings, you let me sob all over you, and you've taught me more than I could have ever learned on my own. So I want to tell you THANK YOU, for all you've done, and all you're sure to keep doing. And to top it off, I'll even put my nose to the grindstone today and get as much done as I possibly can. Square?"

He watched the emotions flicker behind his SIC's face, optics wide open he was so shocked and completely readable. For a minute or two longer, he just stared, and finally he snapped out of his stupor and gave a soft, defeated groan, scrubbing his face. He sent Nightflier a withering glare.

"You are young, impetuous, and beyond troublesome, but damn it all if you aren't a genuinely decent mech."

Nightflier immediately gave an impish grin. "Just decent? I was shooting for a little more than that!"

Ultra Magnus grunted, lapsing back to his former self again, standing tall and saying, "Well. I'm sure one of these days you'll earn your stripes."

Nightflier nodded his helm, leading Ultra Magnus out, and he frowned suddenly. "Hopefully those aren't prison stripes."

"I have yet to decide which I meant."

Nightflier shrugged, almost skipping along he was in such a good mood. "Well, I want the tiger stripes, so don't go jinxing me. What is a jinx, anyways? Or why do tigers have stripes, for that matter."

He heard Ultra Magnus give a tempered sigh. "I would not know, Nightfall."

"No biggy," he said as they came into the base. "I'm sure Jack could probably explain it to me—NIGHTSTALKER!"

He bolted into a run, and before she could make it to Cliffjumper, Nightflier swooped in and grabbed her up in a tight hug, whirling her around. "GOOD morning, Nights!"

She rubbed her audio receptor pointedly and hiked a brow at him even as a smile toyed at the edge of her mouth. "Good morning," she replied wryly. "Though I didn't need you shouting in my—"

"Hey, I see what you did there!"

Before Nightstalker could finish was she was saying, Cliffjumper grabbed her up in an even bigger, tighter hug. He grinned as he sat her back down on her peds, a pleased light twinkling in his optics. "Good morning, Nights."

She pursed her lips, unable to decide if she found them cute or irritating. Nightflier smirked. "If this ends up being a hug competition between you two . . ."

*Did someone say hug competition?*

Her optics popped just in time for arms to latch around her from behind, and Nightstalker squeaked when she was twirled around again. *I win!* Nightstalker kept her face as disgruntled as possible as Bumblebee cuddled her up close to his chassis, unwilling to let go. *I win because I'm the cutest*

Nightflier let his jaw pop open in horrified shock, truly enjoying the irritated expression on his sister's face. "YOU?" he said, aghast at Bumblebee. "The CUTEST? No no no, dude, you've got it all wrong. I'M the cutest one!"

A barking laugh exploded from Cliffjumper. "Oho, you both are barking up the wrong tree. Everyone knows I'm the cutest! Aren't I, Nights?"

All three mechs looked expectantly at her, and Nightstalker pressed her lips tightly. Then, her savoir came from the crowd.

"I wouldn't answer that, Nights."

She glanced over to Jack on the gangway and arched a brow. "Why not? Because I'm the cutest?"

He grinned, but shook his head. "No. Have you ever heard of the Judgment of Paris?" When she shook her head in response, he said, "Basically, there was a golden apple sent to the fairest of all the Greek goddesses. Three goddesses claimed it, and the tie was broken by a man named Paris choosing who was the most beautiful."

When he paused, Nightstalker shrugged her shoulders. "So? What happened?"

"The Trojan war."

His flat, deadpan voice caused her to snicker. "Well, I doubt this war could get any worse—"

"PRIME!"

Nightflier nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Fowler's voice booming through the computer. Ratchet, nerves tempered over his time with dealing with the high strung human, didn't even blink.

Nightflier hurried over, excusing himself from the fun. "What is it, Agent Fowler?"

"I'm on my way to the base, but I just got word the 'Cons busted into the Solaris Particle Project at the South Pole!"

"In progress?"

"In progress!"

Nightflier grinned. "Well. Then let's put the brakes on this wild animal! Autobots! Up and at 'em!"

When Ultra Magnus made a move to go with, he was stopped briefly by Ratchet, given a voucher from both Nightstalker and Wheeljack of all people, before Ratchet reluctantly let him into the field. Nightflier glanced around the room before saying, "Bulkhead, Smokescreen, remain here with Ratchet to guard our prisoner." Briefly, he heard his sister squeak in excitement that she was finally getting to go with. His energon tanks twisted in worry, but he immediately felt his father's soothing touch in his spark that he was doing right.

It didn't really make him feel better, but the thought was there. "Everyone else, let's get this show on the road!"

It felt kinda funny, running through the ground bridge when everyone else transformed—barring his father—but that thought was swept from his mind the minute they got to the Pole.

"Frag me flying, it's FREEZING out here!"

Arcee transformed as they spotted the building in the distance that was most likely the endeavors of the Decepticons. "It's the South Pole," she remarked dryly. "You might want to brush up on your geography."

Nightflier waved his hand. "Another time." Gesturing for them to follow, he took them at a brisk, if wary, pace towards the base, on the lookout for any resistance. He didn't see any yet, and he presumed in his processor that with circuit-chilling temperatures like these, they would bunker inside the building instead of braving the elements. But, there was still call for precautions.

They were approaching the nearer vicinity of the base when he suddenly received a patch from Ratchet. "Nightfall," the medic said to him. Nightflier held up his hand, stopping the group as he focused on Ratchet's words. "I know this hardly seems the time, but it may aid you in your task."

"Go ahead."

"I believe that Megatron may be attempting to rebuild the Omega Lock." Surprise and shock etched across Nightflier's features. Of all things . . . Was it even possible? "Do we let him?"

Nightflier pressed his lips together. He knew what had become of the Omega Lock. He knew the pros and cons of it. And as he rapidly rifled through his thoughts, trying to figure out what the most prudent course of action was, he desperately wanted to talk to Ultra Magnus about it. He glanced back, but the mech merely frowned at him, wondering what was wrong.

His first major decision as Prime—to save or condemn Cybertron. A part of him wanted nothing more than to allow the Decepticons to do so, but he knew the political reasons they couldn't, and he knew the probabilities of them actually being able to seize the Omega Lock weren't good. He closed his optics, straining against his spark. If Primus willed it, the Omega Lock would be built or restored regardless of his decision.

"No," he finally said. "I know why, and you know why. And I'm not going to allow a repeat of the tragedy that happened the first time."

Ratchet's crushed sigh was audible over the line. A guilty thread wove itself through Nightflier's spark. "Understood."

The line cut dead, so Nightflier continued their quest, unrest weaving into his spark as he went. He wasn't even fully sure of the decision he had just made. Something so important, and he hadn't even dwelled on it long. But then he reminded himself that he COULDN'T dwell on it long. If they were to stop this heist, that would mean to stop the construction of the Omega Lock—

A sharp screech rent the air. Nightflier jerked and whirled, and his spark hit his peds at the sight he saw.

THAT was the Predacon? Nightflier gaped, astounded at the primal magnificence of the beast heading their way, fear slithering its way into his spark. He couldn't fight that. He wasn't enough to fight that—

The Predacon pulled up, hovering, and its chassis expanded, and unholy horror rose in Nightflier's optics. Swimming flames gathered in its chassis, and he watched, frozen as the pressure rose up its throat, and a cold chill settled in his chassis.

"Down!"

The fireball shot from the Predacon's jaws, and the Autobots scattered.

Nightflier stayed rooted to the spot, paralyzed by suffocating fear as the burning flames hurtled towards him. He stood in the streets of Kaon, in the heart of the danger, pinned by the weight of his fear, pinned by the weight of the beam on his back, mangling his wings, fire, so much fire, it loomed, it came closer it was going to kill him he was dying and he could hear the screams of the dying—

"NIGHTFLIER!"

A heavy weight slammed into him in a full throttle tackle. The wind gusted out of him. The heat singed by. They landed, and Nightflier felt himself whipped up to his feet and his shoulders grabbed and shook. He was shaken almost violently, and through the twister of sickening terror in his spark, Nightflier felt unbridled panic forcing itself again him.

For a second, he didn't even realize it was his father shaking him. And then, it took him a second longer to realize he was shouting in his face.

" . . . do that to me again! You hear me? Don't you EVER do that to me! NEVER freeze up like that! NEVER!"

For one second, Nightflier felt like a child again. Just a young sparkling, in way over his head, and he trembled all by himself when Dreadwing released him. Whirling around, almost shell-shocked, Nightflier tried to keep himself from hyperventilating.

"Go," he finally cracked out to them. He pointed when they just looked at him. "This battle is for fliers only." He looked to his second in command. "Ultra Magnus—"

"You heard your leader," Ultra Magnus said when they hesitated. "Forge ahead!"

Nightflier whirled to Nightstalker. "Nights, I need your whips."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"Please!" he said more forcefully, extending his hands. "I need your whips! Trust me!" She jumped at the force in his words, but obligingly handed them to him. "Ratchet, Nightstalker needs a ground bridge, immediately."

"No!" Nightflier jerked away when she nearly grabbed her weapons back. "You promised I'd be in on this one! You promised me!"

"No!" Nightflier snapped at her, optics hardening. He glanced up, watching the beast as it came around for another attack. "That was before! This is NOW." The ground bridge blasted open near them, and he pointed a finger, servo shaking in terror as he pulled the rank he had barely used. "Go."

"You promised me!" she shouted back. Anger curled in the back of her optics, and she clenched her fists. "I can do this, Nightflier, but you won't let me!"

Dreadwing drew his cannon, watching the Predacon circle back. "Nightflier, you've held her back long enough!" he said sharply to his son. "She CAN handle it, Nightflier! We need all the help we can get—"

"I said no!" Nightflier growled. "Nightstalker, I am your Prime, and I order you back to base!"

He watched her facial features shutter into an icy mask. She turned on her heel without another word to him and headed through the ground bridge, and it closed behind her with finality.

Though he didn't know how he was ever going to make it up to his sister, the vice of apprehension clenching his spark released a little. She was safe. She was going to be safe. It was going to be all right. She was safe now.

He whirled back around when his father open fired on the oncoming beast. Holstering the whips on his hips, Nightflier pressed his lips mulishly together. He ignored his father's reprimand about his sister and instead focused on the battle at hand.

He could deal with that later. For now, he had a beast to tame.


	67. Death of Me

**Author's Note:**

**And the second half of this chapter! :D Loved all your wonderful reviews! ^-^ You beautiful people deserve all the cookies of the world! Hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

><p>The Predacon performed a stunning barrel roll, wings flexing as it swirled with eerie grace around Dreadwing's onslaught of bullets. Nightflier's spark hit his stomach again when he saw the fire curl up in the beast's chassis, and though the servos of the dead reached to drag him down, Nightflier flung himself away, lunging for safety as the monster dive bombed them.<p>

Dreadwing held no such reservations for backing down. Holstering his gun, he transformed in a klik and took off, his underbelly nearly skimming the Predacon's back as he swirled acrobatically to about-face the dragon that was flapping its wings, struggling to pull out of its mad charge. Unleashing a volley of gunfire on the beast, it crashed in a gangly heap, wings flicking and screeching its displeasure.

Yellow optics fixed themselves on Nightflier.

It was by reflex that Nightflier lashed his shield on, drew his short sword, and let his battle mask clamp into place as the beast charged him. He backed away several steps, processor power spiking as he desperately wondered how to combat the beast before it was right atop him, claws raised for the kill.

With a yelp, Nightflier ducked beneath the claw that could shred him in one blow and cringed back from the snapping jaws that could devour him in one bite. Pushed back by the beast, Nightflier danced on its chain, toyed with before the kill. Slamming his shield against the mouth that bit at him, the electrical charge made the Predacon hiss and rear its head up, not expecting the jolt. Taking the advantage he got, Nightflier jabbed his short sword in the softest spot he could find—the mandibles, spread on a shriek.

The dragon roared in pain, rearing its head back and retaliating by slamming its tail down. Nightflier shouted and bolted, and the massive limb struck the ground, sending snow and icy ground chunking and flying. Whirling to face his foe, Nightflier's optics flared, the familiar dose of trepidation seeping through his circuits like a plague when the Predacon's mandibles flared and flames licked up its throat.

And then, his father was there, powerful, clawed hands grabbing the animal's main, upper two mandibles and throwing his full weight against the beast. He ripped the dragon's head down and to the side, sending the jettison of flames awry, and Nightflier cried out, falling back and cowering.

The Predacon screeched. Its wings flared, nearly clipping Nightflier they expanded so wide, and it took off, dragging up Dreadwing with it. Nightflier gasped for air, chilling breaths stark against his insides. His head jerked up, watching as his father struggled with the beast up high, quickly gaining altitude. He looked back down on his blade, a fine trickle of energon rolling down the sharp edge of his blade.

This thing could be hurt. Nightflier took comfort in that thought, seizing to it in the effort to forget his fears that clouded his mind of any critical thinking. It may seem impenetrable, but everything had its weak points.

Nightflier swallowed and gritted his dentures, swearing to himself to find out what the Predacon's were. Transforming and flying up to the battle above, he drove hard as his father landed a punch that finally dislodged the beast's hold on him. Feinting to the side, Nightflier took the chance of the broad side of the dragon bearing open for the attack. Though he knew his stun guns wouldn't hurt it, Nightflier shot at it, watching its reaction to gauge the soft spots; he dotted bullets down its body, from behind its helm, the joints, the underbelly, its paws, but it all only seemed to incense it more. Banking sharply away, Nightflier tried to avoid the snapping jaws, but they clamped down around him.

He shouted more with a jarring scare than actual pain. The main, larger serrated teeth missed him by mere inches, and for once Nightflier was GLAD he was so small. Still, he felt himself lifted and thrown with powerful strength, and the world twisted wildly on its axis, sky and earth, sky and earth, black and white and black and white—

Frantically searching to control his equilibrium and stop his freefall to the ground, the second he managed to orient himself upright, Nightflier blasted his thrusters on full power. The nose of his alt mode pulled up as hard as he could, and while his descent slowed, it wasn't going to be enough. He couldn't pull up out of this one.

Wryly, he thought to himself, any landing you can walk away from is a good one, right?

Holding fast to that glitched up thought, Nightflier strained his engines as he came in screaming to the ground. Every wire and circuit inside him strained up, and he felt the head of the ground skid against his underbelly before the gravity caught him and he CRASHED, flipping and skidding and sliding over the slick surfaces of frozen snow.

He transformed as he came to a stop, groaning, voice thick with static. Though painful, he sucked in bone-chilling breaths of cold air, internal diagnostics running. Though there was plenty of surface damage, he hadn't lost anything valuable. He felt some rivulets of energon freezing against his body. He waited impatiently for his glitching optics to recalibrate, trusting his father to cover for him.

As if by the mere thought of him, he felt Dreadwing brush against his spark, asking in worry, _Are you all right?_

Nightflier heaved another groan, the world slowly coming back into focus. High above, he could see his father battling with the Predacon. A drop of energon hit his cheek, and he knew it wasn't his.

_I'm fine, I—OW. Cybertron below me . . . I'm—I'm functional, watch yourself!_

Catching his breath for a moment longer, Nightflier gritted his dentures and heaved himself to his peds. His father needed him up there. His head craned up and his optics fixated themselves on the fight, and before he transformed again, he froze, recognizing the orange glow beginning above. Dreadwing and the Predacon were locked together, his hands on the beast's mandibles again, those dangerous jaws trying their damndest to snap around and crush his helm. Instead, the fire rose, and Dreadwing yanked its head to the side again, sending them careening sickeningly to the ground, a wild jettison of flame spraying across the dark sky.

Nightflier stood, peds fused to the ground, unable to get himself to take off and help. Not with that heathenish fire there. Primus, not the fire. He squeezed his optics shut, quaking.

_This is NOT Kaon, this is NOT Kaon, this is NOT KAON . . . !_

He tried to forget it. He tried to forget that black stain in his past, the feel of energon staining his peds and slipping in the lifeblood of the Cybertronians dying around him, but it was so stark in his mind, tripping over severed limbs, seeing screaming mech, femmes, and sparklings tossed into the smelting pits, and the burning of the city as they razed it to the ground.

Struggling not to hyperventilate, Nightflier looked back up just in time to see Dreadwing lambasted by the Predacon's tail. The force of the blow sent the mech plummeting to the ground, limp and swirling.

Panic slashed across Nightflier's consciousness. "DAD! Dad, wake up! Wake up, wake up—"

_WAKE UP!_

He darted across the icy snow, bolting towards where his father's inevitable crash landing was. He didn't know why—there was no way he'd be able to catch a mech as large as himself, but by the pits of Kaon, he would try! Spark hammering in his chassis, he watched helplessly as his father smashed into the ground, hitting the earth with the force of a falling star.

* * *

><p>"I am going to KILL him!"<p>

Bulkhead gave an uneasy smile, wary of the femme in her enraged state. "Well, you wouldn't REALLY, Nights. You're just angry—"

"Fragging right, I'm angry!" Nightstalker threw up her arms in frustration, nearly pacing the room she was so pissed off. "That backstabbing, lying little glitching CHEAT! Oh, you can come with us Nights—I ORDER YOU BACK TO BASE. The frag does he think he is!"

Smokescreen shuffled his peds uncertainly. "Um . . . I guess he's thinking he's Prime."

"Why the Pit do I care if he's Prime!" Nightstalker snapped, getting the rookie to quail and all but duck behind Bulkhead for protection. The bigger mech held up his hands in surrender as Nightstalker pointed her finger at him. "He's just doing this because I'm his sister! That's the only reason why, and it's fragging pissing me off!"

"You are right to be angry, Nightstalker," the wise voice of Ratchet cut in, "and I can tell you exactly why he keeps leaving you at the base."

Nightstalker whirled on him, brows shooting upwards. "Why?"

Ratchet arched a brow right back at her. "You mean you honestly haven't figured it out yet?" When Nightstalker just gave him a blank look, he snorted. "He's afraid."

Nightstalker blinked at him. "Afraid?"

Her father nodded. "Yes. He's afraid of losing you."

"He's afraid of—FRAG ME FLYING. I am so going to kill him!" She threw up her hands, beginning to pace again. "He needs to stop underestimating me! I've done perfectly fine all my life without him to hold my hand every step of the way, and he needs to understand that I'm not some breakable China doll!"

Ratchet held up a hand. "Nightstalker, really. Calm down. You need to understand where he's coming from."

She whirled around on her heel, jaw dropping open to gape at him. She gave one, hurt little gasp. "I can't believe you're siding with him!"

"No, I'm not," Ratchet was quick to say, "but I DO understand why he's acting this way."

Nightstalker crossed her arms haughtily, wings snapping up challengingly. "Oh really? Fine then. Enlighten me."

Ratchet nodded, Bulkhead and Smokescreen wide-eyed spectators. "I suspect he's been traumatized by the slaughter in Kaon," he said. "As you were traumatized by seeing your brother supposedly die. He's simply terrified to lose you the way he had supposedly lost you in Kaon, and he's willing to do anything to keep you safe—including sequestering you at the base to keep you out of harm's way." Ratchet shook his head, lips pressing. "I do not condone his behavior, but you might want to confront him and talk to him about it."

After staring at him for one full beat, Nightstalker groaned, palming her face in her hands and wings sagging. "You can't be serious," she said, words muffled. A second later, they heard a door open, and Nightstalker looked over to see Fowler walking out of his office, a frown set upon his face. Her optics flickered as she frowned.

"Are you all right—"

Before she could even finish her sentence, a crash sounded in the base, and the telltale whir of Laserbeak filled the air. Nightstalker gaped and swore.

"Fragging tinfoil turkey!"

Yelping and ducking away as the offending bird swooped in, it open fired, sending the bots scattering to avoid damage. It circled around, and Nightstalker lifted her head just in time to see quick-placed shots taking out the bondages strapping Soundwave down.

Her gaze flattened. "On no you don't, you origami trash—"

Bolting across the room, Smokescreen bought a little time by clipping Laserbeak's wing, but ultimately, the bird made its way back to Soundwave before Nightstalker's peds could. She skidded to an abrupt halt in front of Soundwave just as Laserbeak latched to his chassis and his visor flicked on.

"SCRAP—!"

A deceptively powerful servo grabbed her and flung her backwards. Nightstalker crashed back into the wall beneath the gangways, and shook the stars free of her head. Looking up, she saw that Soundwave had already used his creepy tentacles to down both Smokescreen and Bulkhead, electrical charges crackling from the tips as he knocked Agent Fowler down—

Primus bless that man, she always adored his tenaciousness.

Instead, she saw Ratchet cornered. And she could see the fire spitting from his optics, but ultimately, it was fear. He was outmatched, and he knew it. They all knew it. And there wasn't a damn thing Nightstalker could do as she bolted across the room, reaching for her whips that weren't there.

Ratchet's optics shifted to her as Soundwave raised his tentacles, and one word blazed in his optics:

_RUN._

Soundwave's tentacles planted themselves on his chassis, sending the high voltages coursing through the medic's systems, forcing a system's shutdown almost immediately. Doing any such thing BUT leaving him, she instead jumped ferociously on Soundwave's back, grabbing her one sole blade and raising it to stab into whatever part of him she could.

"Stay away from my father!"

The words she screamed out caused Soundwave's tentacles to quickly whip around and knock the blade from her hand. It skidded across the floor and out of reach. Digging her claws under his plating, she fingered soft protoform, and was about to pump as much lava into the sensitive spot when an arm slammed down on her, forcing her to the floor. She grunted heavily and found herself pinned by a ped. Soundwave's calculating visor stared down at her.

Played back to her in her own voice was, _"Stay away from my father!"_ and the words skipped, replaying again, _"father!"_

Her optics widened in horror.

She was no one's bribery.

She was no one's blackmail.

She wasn't going to be used for extortion—

Electrical voltage shocked through her systems until she couldn't keep herself online anymore.

* * *

><p>Nightflier raced to where Dreadwing had fallen.<p>

"Dad! DAD!"

Skidding to his side, Nightflier dropped to a knee and shook his shoulder, managing to get him to stir groggily, with a low groan. "Dad, wake up—!"

The screech of the Predacon closing in made Nightflier dart back out and between the beast and his father. He drew his blade, shield crackling with electrical energy as he shivered in the cold—though, from fear, not the cold. And his fear only grew worse, circuits chilling as he saw with clarity the Predacon TRANSFORM, landing on the same peds of the mech that had so easily decimated him and his father before.

He wanted to believe that it had never happened. He wanted to believe that it couldn't be true, but it was, and it always would be.

In fact, the mech barely glanced at Nightflier, more focused on Dreadwing as he always was. The traitor to the Decepticon cause; he merely branded small Nightflier as weak, easy prey compared to the main course. Nightflier found himself taking offense at the mech's disregard of him.

"It took a cataclysm to extinguish Cybertron's original Predacon inhabitants," the Predacon said with prideful superiority. He hit his chassis. "You never stood a chance against me, TRAITOR." For once, those yellow optics fixated on the small mech, like a teacup puppy barking up a Rottweiler's tree. Amusement shone. "PRIME."

His left arm transformed, wielding a gun of a fashion Nightflier didn't recognize. "In fact, the time has come for YOUR extinction!"

But in that one glance at that gun, Nightflier knew it couldn't possibly be the make of a fusion cannon. His shield was powerful—it was able to withstand any blaster, including things as powerful as ion cannons. Only things as heavy hitting as bombs, missiles, and fusion cannons could make it short out, and this mech wielded none of those.

So when he shot, Nightflier deflected the bullet back at him. It ricocheted back to the Predacon, and he shouted and snarled when Nightflier managed to get the drop on him. Rushing forward and going for the knees that were roughly optic level with him, Nightflier slammed his shield against him and jabbed his short sword down, managing to dig his small weapon into a crack in the mech's armor.

The mech roared, vocalizer carrying the underlying screech of the beast he transformed into. A large hand grabbed him, and Nightflier felt himself chucked and thrown like a football. He soared for a second or two, and then, he found himself crashing and skidding across the ground again. He lifted his helm, seeing stars, and then, he gaped.

He had NOT just been thrown that far!

Dreadwing was up again, deep in a fistfight with the mech, and clearly he had managed to get the drop on him by the way he was pushing the attack on a defending foe. Nightflier transformed into his jet mode, hurrying his way back to them.

The Predacon backhanded his father just as Nightflier transformed, slamming his shield down on top of his head as he landed. He whirled around to face him, felt his arm grabbed, and he was slung back to the ground. He lost his breath at the force of which he impacted with the hard, unforgiving ice, and he groaned tightly as he struggled back up to his peds. The Predacon snarled in pain again, for what, Nightflier couldn't see as his optics recalibrated, but he heard his father's commanding voice demand, "Stand down, Predacon!"

"I am PREDAKING!" the mech growled back, anger lacing his voice as he made his name clear to them. "And I will NEVER bow to your kind!"

Then, as the mech charged his father, Nightflier bolted to his peds, following, and he could only gape as Predaking jumped up, KICKED Dreadwing square in the face, transformed while flipping backwards, and landed on his feet like a goddamn cat.

It was almost enough to make him break his stride, especially when his father crashed back, completely unconscious. But it was now or never, and this had to work.

_It's no different than Minitron, no different from Minitron—!_

Sheathing his blade and instead grabbing Nightstalker's whips, Nightflier used the thrusters in his peds to kick off high from the ground, and he lashed out the whips. They caught on either side of Predaking's mouth, cutting deep into the mandibles, and Nightflier landed right on top of the beast's back.

At the last second, Nightflier suddenly thought this was a bad idea.

Predaking screeched and flung his head immediately, turning himself into a wildly bucking beast. Nightflier tightened his legs on his neck, refusing to get unseated, and he held on for dear life as his wings spread, and he took off with a jarring leap.

Gritting his dentures, Nightflier turned the whips on, and electricity coursed through them. The Predacon screeched, thrashing blindly midair at the pain that centered itself on the soft edges of his mouth. Nightflier snarled, pulling against him as hard as he could, letting the caught edges cut deeper into his mandibles. Predaking roared, and Nightflier felt the powerful body beneath him seize and thrash, fighting against him, quickly dropping and losing his altitude.

Heat gathered abruptly between his legs. For one second, a slash of hysteria colored Nightflier's spark, and he desperately wanted to let go, but he couldn't. Not now that he had him!

Fire ignited from the dragon's jaws, and Nightflier cried out in terror, the heat too close, too centered, and too hot. Yanking the whips hard, the sudden pain caught Predaking off guard, and they went hurting out of the sky, twisting and spiraling out of control. They crashed through the top of the human outpost, landing in a heap in the middle of the battlefield and making quite the spectacle of themselves.

Over Predaking's screeching roars of hatred, Nightflier heard Bumblebee's voice squealing out, *Nightflier! What are you DOING?*

Pit if he knew what he was doing! If he was a beast, he could tame him! Fighting against the great dragon, Nightflier ignited the thrusters in his peds, searing deep scores of burns into his flanks. Predaking screeched, wings flapping and electricity beginning to glitch his optics from shocking his mouth for so long.

"Stop!" Nightflier snapped down at him. Filled with fury and fear, he lashed the whips tighter, drawing a shrieking whine from the Predacon. "Submit already! You're MINE!"

For a brief second, Nightflier thought he had him. He lowered his head, growling dangerously, but ceased his struggling. But then, he felt Predaking's metal shift, warping and transforming beneath him, and his optics popped as his neck changed from a beast until his head stood erect between his legs in a sort of twisted piggyback ride.

Before Nightflier could figure out what to do next, a large, clawed hand grabbed him. Whipped off his back, Nightflier felt himself slammed cruelly into the ground, and he coughed, choking on energon backing up in his systems. That hand yanked him back up, and he was held right before the enraged beast's face, hellfire raging in those cursed yellow optics. Jagged denta bared with a growl, and though static warped his every word, they came out with terrifying, stunning clarity:

"I CANNOT BE _TAMED!"_

A cold chill settled in Nightflier's spark, and he felt himself wound up and throw with unparalleled strength, like a tiny chew toy. He slammed into a wall, the wall cracking, nearly shattering beneath the force of which he struck it, and he spasmed slightly on the ground, a wing having caught the brunt of the blow. Wildly, having lost Nightstalker's whips, he took his shield and sword again.

Nightflier looked up just in time to see the fire churning deep in the depths of Predaking's throat. This time, it was too much. The fear torturing him rose up, crashing down, and he lost his nerve—his father was unconscious, completely at the mercy of the beast; no one was there to help him or support him; and that fire, that ungodly, primal fire that infected his processor like a pestilence until the flames burned cold fear into him. Arcee's shrill shriek cut the air.

_ "NIGHTFLIER!"_

It rose and jettisoned from the maw of the beast. Violent tremors shook up and down his body, and Nightflier felt every sense of logic flee his mind. Terror swallowed him into the dark abyss and horrific screams raked across his audios. Hot energon bloodied beneath his peds, and dying servos dragged him into oblivion.

He screamed.

The force of the flames jettisoning into him sent him flying back. An agonized, terrified scream cracked from his vocalizer, white hot agony scorching across his body. The blast flung him deep into the human building, and he crashed into the weakened wall. The fire never ended. The conflagration spread, catching the building, sending the beams falling, the ceiling crumbling, chaos around him. Nightflier screamed endlessly, nearly thrashing in unadulterated panic as he stumbled around blindly, gossamer flames dancing in his optics everywhere he turned.

Pain overwhelmed him. His armor was melting, fusing to his protoform, hotter than melted wax. The bestial roar of the fire crackled and spat and growled like a feral animal. It tore at him, bringing him to his knees. His gasps swallowed burning flames, sucking in raining sparks. His lips stretched past his dentures, and he dropped his sword, suffering in his hell. His audio receptors blazed in a high-pitched keen as the audio input maxed out; his voice cracked and filled with static. He fell silent, collapsing to the ground, despairing and unable to prevail.

Vaguely, he wondered if this was what dying felt like. It was pure fire, pure agony tearing through every inch of his body. The bitter thought that he as the newest Prime had only managed to last a few months would be the most shameful track record of any Prime that had ever lived. He dived into that despairing thought, letting it sweep his ashes away.

Then, he realized it—he was still alive. The stream of flames had stopped, though the building still burned around him. His optics weakly flickered back online, and dancing orange ropes of light performed before his optics. His hearing slowly returned. The pain was never-ceasing. It consumed him as the building burned around him in a staged death.

Death.

Deep inside his chassis, like a faint whisper in darkness, Nightflier felt it. The Primes. Every Prime, the original Thirteen, the ones chosen after them, Zeta, Sentinel, and Optimus. Wordless urgings for him to get up. He could not give up at this point. He had a duty. His body was not dead.

Dead.

The word rang a faint bell in his processor. The Matrix flickered in his chassis, glowing madly inside even brighter than the flames that raged around him. The cost of being a Prime—the death of himself.

Of course. The Primes had not meant that he, physically, would die—they meant his spirit. His personality. His freedom. His soul. The ultimate sacrifice.

With a rather bitter epiphany, Nightflier realized what he was in for as the next Prime. They weren't kidding when they had said it was a heavy burden few could carry. As Prime, he was expected to walk away from things like this and instill belief and determination in his troops. HIS troops. He was forced to order them, see them more as soldiers instead of the friends he had made. The mentor, the brother, the lover. He now lived, worked, and spoke for the sake of others and was forced to forgo all his personal expression and attachments for the sake of his title. His value as a person no longer rested on WHO he was, but rather WHAT he was.

A despairing groan fell from his lips. The hellfire raged around him, taunting him and burning him, scorching as consuming fires. A heavy beam had fallen on his back, halfway crushing his formerly handicapped wing again and the weight pressed on his shoulders, physically and spiritually.

He didn't want social isolation from his friends, his family. He couldn't give that up. His personal desires were too strong. That kind of pain and sacrifice was too much to ask of anyone.

Yet, as Nightflier trembled on the ground hot as coals, he knew without a doubt that he could not give up. Yes, it was unfair—it was deplorable to strip a person like this. The Primes had said it themselves. They knew the costs, they sympathized with him, and yet, YET—! They all claimed they would do it all over again. They would not pass the title of Prime to another because they knew so well the horror of the path of a hero. They were willing to shoulder the burden of living as a Prime so that no one else had to, so that no one else would have their inner being torn out for the sake of others.

A stroke of defiance lit in Nightflier.

_What if it doesn't have to be that way?_

He could practically feel the audible silence of the Primes he could only faintly commune with. He lifted his head, staring out into the flames burning around him.

_I understand. I understand this death . . . why it must be . . . And I am resigned to that. What I don't understand is why I cannot show personal feelings._

They all understood his unwillingness—they had gone through it too. But as a commander, loving and caring would make him pick favorites—it would make him reluctant to send them into battle. They had seen him make that mistake one too many times already, and Nightflier remembered it too.

_I cannot deny my mistakes. But I do not have to become nothing but a sparkless figurehead for them._

Shock. It poured over the communal line of the Matrix of Leadership, and Nightflier ignored their protests, their words of worry. One Prime was silent out of them all, and Nightflier shared his exploded tomb of flames with him.

_Just because none of you were able to balance the responsibility of Prime with your personal lives does not mean I am not able to. Sure, yeah, I know I will generally be more reserved, but when I am alone with my sister? No. I will love her and cherish her as I always have. My bond with my father reverberates through my spark, and I will NOT turn my back on that. I will not break them like that ever again._

_ And when I am with Arcee . . . I cannot deny my passions for her. I might fall in love with her if I'm not careful. And that is a treasure worth taking the risks. Optimus, just because you tried and failed with Elita One does not mean I will do the same with Arcee._

Agony poured from the other side of the Matrix.

_I know. And if I do make a mistake in my judgment, so be it. We all make mistakes, something the rest of you Primes can't seem to understand._

He couldn't afford to make mistakes.

_I know that too. But I will deal with my mistakes. There is no way to avoid them, so I will overcome that when the time comes. But I refuse to give up my very identity._

Nightflier gained strength as he argued with the ancient Primes that disapproved of his choice, all but one. His hands slapped to the ground, and with a grit of his teeth and a deep-set groan, Nightflier pushed, arching his back to get the heavy beam off of him. It didn't budge. Fear flared up among his determination.

_It's time the lineage of the Primes changed. No longer are we going to be self-righteous hypocrites that deny ourselves a sentient life. I will not be dictated by the Matrix—it is a vessel of knowledge and life, nothing more. It cannot make my decisions for me, and I will not allow it to make decisions for me—and I won't allow any of you to make my decisions for me. Yes, trusted confidants, but my master? Never._

With a cry, Nightflier bucked, straining against the beam that pinned him. It was too heavy! It was too heavy, he couldn't do this alone! The roof burned the sky above him and collapsed around him. Through the fire, he saw the gossamer silhouette of a figure coming his way.

His panicking spark lifted—Ultra Magnus.

_I am a new beginning. Nightfall Prime. I do not walk in the sun that my predecessors did because I am a rebel. I see the shadows of darkness you all passed, and I walk in your shadows to learn from your mistakes to never make the same ones._

His SIC came to his side, squatting and grabbing the edge of the burning beam. With a heavy grunt and groan, Ultra Magnus hefted, lifting the weight from his shoulders, refusing to let his Prime die, keeping his solemn promise: _As long as I am around, I will not let you die, Nightfall._ And he wasn't. He was here with him in this place, providing his support and strength again, faithful to the end. His bum servo gleamed, shining bright as it collected heat. Nightflier drew upon his strength, forcing himself to slip from beneath the beam when there was enough room.

_I will learn to command with the skill Zeta had. I will open my eyes to the corruption around me, as Sentinel did. I will learn the time where compassion is not enough, like Optimus. And I will remember the original Thirteen, blessed by Primus, and realize that I too am blessed by Primus and am the vessel for his will._

His hand closed around his sword. The fires crackled and snapped at him, a blazing hell, and smoke tried to trick his optics and it choked his systems.. The flames licked over his body, but he rose with Ultra Magnus's help. Though fear crippled his will, Nightflier locked his knees, refusing to let his SIC carry him, though he did brace himself against his arm—the one with his crippled servo—his right hand, determination welling up inside like a great storm. The heat burned away his past, his present, his future. The old he was dead and gone—the name Nightflier was no longer his. It was only Nightfall Prime.

_ Today is a new day. In the same way in which Optimus's physical body died, consumed by flame, so in the same way I have died. I am buried with him. And from the ashes of his grave I am reborn. This is the death of me—_

_ I am Nightfall Prime._

With the last sparks flying and burning into his frame, Nightfall stepped from the wreckage with Ultra Magnus to see the sight of the battlefield in complete ruins. Dead Vehicons scattered the floors, and the item the Decepticons had been there to collect was gone. Predaking and Shockwave were nowhere to be found. And the Autobots, a little battered, absolutely gaped in their direction.

He didn't realize the sight they must have made. His armor was shining brightly, blazing with heat as he strode with deadly purpose from his tomb of flames. Even Ultra Magnus glowed. The blue electricity of his shield crackled and fizzled, nearly cutting out, and his sword glowed like a beacon of light. His cold, cobalt optics set forward resolutely, glaring out with hellish determination, and his wings flared intimidating. For once, his size was of no fault to his intimidation. The wrath of a Prime rose up in him. He cast off his fear. His childish ways shattered like glass. He bared his denta, lips curling in disdain as he rose from the ashes a different mech from before.

"They got away," Nightfall managed to crack out through the static clouding his vocalizer.

The cold air of the pole juxtaposed sharply against the heat of the fire behind him. Finally, though Wheeljack, Arcee, Cliffjumper, and Bumblebee all held the same exact expression, it was Wheeljack that finally said offhandedly, "Scrap, we thought you were a goner."

Nightfall's wings twitched. Pain scoured every inch of his frame, and he knew they were burns. He could feel it. By the way his protoform pulled at his chassis and stomach, where the brunt of the flames had hit him, he knew his armor was melded to his protoform. It was going to have to be cut free. Ratchet would be furious.

"I'm all right," he said, and he could hear a difference in his voice that had nothing to do with the glitching fizz. Against his spark, he felt his father brush against him.

_You are . . . different. What happened?_

He sounded strained. In pain. And confused. A second later, Nightfall heard his engines low in the sky, and he looked up to watch him come and land from the massive hole left in the roof. Predaking had clawed through his shoulder armor, and energon welled up from the slashes, the blue liquid freezing against his armor. His blue optics flared in concern over his physical wellbeing, but he pressed against his spark again, encasing him in protection even though Nightfall was sure he could stand on his own now.

_Your spirit . . . is strong._

If he wasn't mistaken, Dreadwing's words were slightly in awe of him. The words of Primus echoed in Nightfall's processor. He closed his optics, but the edge of his mouth twitched up in an accepting smile as he responded,

_It cannot be broken._

Little did he know, his spirit was going to be tested immediately. Tiredly, he lifted his arm with a wince, touching his comm. link and saying, "Ratchet, we could really use a bridge back to base. And try to keep my sister from attacking me; I'm in no shape to take another scratch."

Wings tipping down in exhaustion, Nightfall leaned more against Ultra Magnus, almost unable to keep his peds. "Thank you," he rasped to the mech he owed his life to.

The clawed hand tightened around his forearm. "You are welcome." There was a pause. "Sir, please allow me to carry you. You are in no condition to keep pushing yourself."

"I've got it, Magnus," he argued back weakly. Then, noticing the bridge still had not come, was prompted to call again, "Ratchet, do you read me?" Was his comm. link melted in the fire?

But no, he received back a dazed, "Nightfall?" from Bulkhead.

His brows cinched. "Everything all right, Bulk? Ratchet hit you too hard with a wrench and storm off?" There was a long pause. "Bulk? What's wrong. Where's Ratchet."

An even longer pause. "He's . . . He's gone!"

Nightfall froze. That wasn't a, "he's gone out to get an uncommon wax job" that was a "he's gone, and the Pit just froze over."

The young Prime straightened a fraction, wincing with the effort as he demanded, "Bulkhead, what happened? What's going on?"

The next pause was too long for his liking. The longest yet. He heard a nervous clearing of a throat, and finally, Smokescreen managed, "He . . . He's not the only one missing, Nightfall."

A chill settled in his stomach that had nothing to do with the cold winds of the pole. "Soundwave?" he cracked out.

Silence. His wings fanned, not daring to breathe around the terror in his throat as his greatest fears were confirmed.

"Nightstalker's gone too."

_What have I done?_

"Bridge us back. Now."


	68. Persuasion

**Author's Note:**

**Oh my gosh, you guys are going to ENJOY this chapter. :D I've been waiting for this chapter for so long!**

* * *

><p>She was getting dragged. She could feel her heels skidding across the floor, and a hand had her by her wrists. No, by the stasis cuffs locked around her wrists. Twisting uncomfortably, Nightstalker's reaction was a bit slow as her aching processor slowly caught up to the situation.<p>

_Ratchet!_

Jolting wildly and trying to sit up, Nightstalker's optics flashed open to see the eerie and familiar halls of the _NEMESIS_ flickering above. Realizing in horror that she had been taken prisoner, Nightstalker opened her mouth wide and SCREAMED.

Whoever was holding her yelped. Nightstalker jerked and thrashed, twisting and yanking to get away from the clawed hands holding her prisoner. Her wings strained for freedom against the clamp on them, and through her delusional screaming, she heard someone swearing almost fluently, half trying to restrain her and half trying to avoid her flailing limbs.

"Fraggit, Nightstalker! Stop that! Stop it!" He gave her a rough shake, nearly rattling her processor out of her helm. "Stop it right now! You want them to put someone on you that won't be as nice as me?"

Her hammering spark slowed from its fear as she realized who was fighting her. Her head looked up, getting an upside-down view of his red chassis, and relief poured through her.

"Knockout!"

He, on the other hand, didn't seem too excited to see her. His lips pressed and his optics hardened up. He muttered under his breath again as he helped her to her peds and forced her in front of him. Nightstalker stumbled at the force.

Her initial excitement was doused with a bucket of cold water. Arms wrested uncomfortably behind her by the cuffs, Nightstalker realized for good that, yes, she was CUFFED, and Knockout was escorting her down the halls to the prison cells. Against her will, she was hurt, and unthinkingly, she exploded, "What are you DOING?"

"What does it look like?" Knockout replied in a clipped tone as he forced her along.

Nightstalker jammed her heels into the floor, trying her best to refuse to go any further, but Knockout just shoved harder. They fought each other down the hall. "Let me go! You idiot! I'm your sister! Are you REALLY going to put me in the brig?"

Knockout pushed her hard, sending her careening forward and stumbling. "Of course I am," he said tightly. "Megatron gave you to me for a reason, after all."

Nightstalker gritted her dentures, yanking against him. She flexed her wings, trying to clip his chin, but the clamp restricted almost all movement. "Yeah? What for?"

"What do you think!" he snapped, already at wits end with it. "He's testing me, Nightstalker! He's waiting to see if I'll betray him!"

Nightstalker stopped abruptly in the hall, making him run right into her. "Yeah? So why not betray him? I AM your sister."

His engine revved angrily. Knockout shoved her forward again, barking, "Either walk right or I WILL drag you."

Unwillingly, Nightstalker made his job easier, but that didn't mean she wasn't tempted to just throw herself down and let him drag her. "And why not betray him?" she pressed again when he refused to answer. The hall to the brig showed up, and she knew she was running out of time to change his mind. "You could become an Autobot! You KNOW we'd welcome you!"

"Don't even pretend," Knockout snapped. "I'm a 'Con! My kind isn't welcome among yours."

"Dreadwing's one of us now," Nightstalker said, pushing against him a little bit as they entered the elevator that would take them to the lower levels of the _NEMESIS_. "You ARE welcome, Knockout, you could do it, I know you could."

He grunted, avoiding her gaze. Nightstalker waited impatiently for him to respond, and he finally flicked his red optics back to her and then to the floor.

"Paint job looks good."

Nightstalker blinked, and then, she looked away and at the floor too, not knowing what to say about the unexpected compliment. "Thanks," she finally said quietly. "But you didn't answer me."

"There's nothing to answer."

The doors whizzed open, and Nightstalker let him lead her out. "Yes, there is. Why won't you become an Autobot?"

"Look, stop clinging to false hopes," Knockout muttered. "I'm not changing anytime soon, so stop trying to make me. I'm a Decepticon, Nightstalker. I've got enough problems to deal with without making them worse."

Nightstalker stumbled as he pushed her inside one of the cells. She whirled around to face him, pulling her wrists against the cuffs. "Yeah? Like what?"

"Like—" Knockout swore angrily, glaring at her again. "Nightstalker, I've been insulted, scratched up, stepped on, my best friend died and no one cared or even really noticed, I've been beat up by the Autobots more times than I know, I've been manipulated, and chased by vampire zombies! Any power I held as the ship's medic is gone, I report to Shockwave now, ALL my projects have been stripped of me and given to him, I am at the BOTTOM of the Decepticon food chain, Nights, and if I screw up one more time, that's it for me!"

Nightstalker's jaw popped open. "Knockout, that's all the reasons you SHOULD be coming to join the Autobots! I think you'd be really surprised when you realize that the Autobots actually CARE about each other!"

Knockout gave one flat, bitter laugh. "Ha! And get disposed of by Megatron? I don't think so, Nightstalker! There's no way off this ship, not when everything's monitored by Soundwave—" and he broke off with a slightly hysterical laugh. "Primus, what am I even saying, you DO know he's heard everything in this conversation and seen everything and no doubt he's going to report it right back to Megatron!"

He swore under his breath, giving an infuriated gesture. "I've said too much. I can't—I'm leaving, Nightstalker, so don't pin your hopes on me."

Fear slashed into her. He really meant that, didn't he? Letting her emotions batter at the wall he had erected between their sparks, Nightstalker cried out, "Knockout, wait! You're my brother, I'm your sister, you can't do this! You can't just leave me here!"

"I have to!" he snapped, red optics flashing. "I've got my own finish to look after!"

She bolted forward when he walked away, but the door to her cell whizzed shut before she could make it out. Her shoulder collided with the door trapping her inside as she shouted. "Knockout! Knockout, you can't leave me here! You KNOW what he did to me, Knockout, please! Please, you can't do this to me! Please! Please!"

Nightstalker rammed her shoulders against the door, banging and kicking to get his attention. Even if she had it, he chose to ignore her.

"Knockout! KNOCKOUT!"

* * *

><p>Trying to outwit the one whom you had been fighting against for millennia was no easy feat. In fact, it was impossible.<p>

Megatron was playing all the right cards. Both manipulative and threatening. Ratchet was quick to be enlightened to the fact that Megatron WAS trying to rebuild the Omega Lock, and he needed the Synthetic energon formula as a vital component to do so. And, to be honest, Ratchet had expected Megatron's first two moves, blackmailing him with the children and the location of the Autobot base. Even so, he had found it harder to dismiss the children as unimportant than he had originally thought.

And then, with a bipolar switch, all of the sudden Ratchet was allowed to walk free, no cuffs, fully armed, and Megatron basically waltzed him through a full tour of the _NEMESIS_, showing him their molecular masking field, their energon transfusion capacitor, and other such nuances.

He played upon Ratchet's own feelings on the matter. He let him gaze upon the remains of Cybertron again, dead, dark, and Ratchet hated that his persuasion was working. He hated that he could feel every little chink in his armor getting chiseled away by that silver tongue and that no matter what witty, smart, or painfully obvious replies Ratchet could combat Megatron with, Megatron was already aware of what he would say, and Ratchet was already aware that Megatron was aware. And when he pulled the blunt truth that he would try to conquer Cybertron again, that he may terminate Ratchet regardless, it was uncanny to hear, a twisted web of deception made indecipherable with snippets of truth.

Megatron was simply TOO good. He presented Ratchet with great temptation, giving him free access to the Decepticon laboratory. All the tools Ratchet had been needing, fast computers included, all at his fingertips . . . It was terribly hard to resist. He hadn't had a proper area to work in for years. Everything he had ever needed, it was right there. And he was breaking under the weight of the pressure, the temptation, the selfish need to see Cybertron restored once again, and he knew Megatron knew exactly what he was doing and how it would affect him.

_Optimus, my old friend . . . help me, please._

It was odd how the dead comforted him and strengthened him. He clung to Optimus' remembrance, knowing how he could never betray him, even with the devil breathing down his neck. He didn't know what else the warlord could do to him, tempt him with, bribe him with, or threaten him with. There couldn't possibly be anything left, and Ratchet steeled himself with that thought, refusing to give into Megatron.

One thing that also lifted Ratchet's spirits the tiniest bit was Megatron's demeanor. After successfully telling him, in Miko's choice words, to "stow it", Megatron was beginning to show some thinning patience. Clearly the warlord didn't have all the time of the world and was impatient to get a move on. Ratchet, on the other hand, was stalling to give the Autobots time to rescue him, if that was possible.

Staring passively at Megatron, he watched those red optics narrow at him. Megatron paced to the side, clasping his servos behind his back as he kept his gaze on Ratchet, prowling around him in the Decepticon laboratory. "You are testing my patience, my dear Ratchet, and I must say, I do not appreciate it. I have shown you every courtesy."

"And every threat," Ratchet reminded him flatly.

Megatron flashed a shark-like grin his way. "Oh no, not EVERY threat. I was keeping one to myself in the hopes that I would not have to use it on you—" Ratchet scoffed loudly in contempt of that. "But I see you have left me no choice."

Ratchet shifted, watching Megatron walk idly towards the nearest computer. He flicked through files with maddening ease, and unconsciously, Ratchet found his peds scooting him closer, trying to see what he was pulling up.

Megatron stepped back, sweeping a servo to the screen. "Take a look, good doctor. Is there anything here that might possibly influence your decision to cooperate?"

Ratchet froze, every vent snapping shut on his body and vocalizer fusing as he saw the ONLY thing, the only femme crouched on the floor, back pressed against the wall, orange optics darting around the room. He hadn't known they had Nightstalker. He hadn't known. And she had clearly been here as long as he had, only in solitude the whole time. Her wings twitched in their clamps, and she jumped periodically at every little sound echoing and groaning through the ship.

He didn't know what to say to this. Spark hammering in his chassis, Ratchet hid the aghast look that had painted his face a moment ago, taking a deep breath. "I—"

"She's rather precious, is she not?" Megatron interrupted casually. Ratchet couldn't move his optics from the live feed, a consuming, foreboding dark creeping up on his consciousness. "It was almost comical how eagerly she tried to protect you. You must have a very sweet relationship with her for her to so readily claim you as her father."

Ratchet's throat swallowed tightly, sickening apprehension gripping him. Megatron knew. He had known all along he had the coup de grace to ultimately make Ratchet break and had simply held it back, toying with him the whole time. Ratchet's lips trembled before his jaw gnashed tightly.

"Then you already know if you hurt her I won't provide you with anything you want."

Megatron gave a chuckle, the sound slithering over his audio receptor. "And you know that if you do not comply to my wishes, I will gladly do whatever I like with her."

Ratchet whirled, temper sparking fast like dynamite before he could stop it. "You can keep your filthy, energon-stained servos away from her!" he snarled, optics blazing like supernovas in his agitation. "If you lay one hand on her, I promise you I will personally amputate your glossia, hands, and spike."

His anger merely made the warlord chuckle and tut his glossia sadly. "I'm very sorry, Ratchet," he said. Ratchet twitched when Megatron gave a lurid grin. "It must have been quite the mess for you to clean up. I'm actually quite surprised she survived. Your medical skills are apt as ever."

He was THIS close to attacking him despite what transgressions it might land upon him. His servos twitched, and his fingers clenched. His energon tanks twisted in remembrance, and his spark pulsed wildly, aggressive and protective. Stifling rage scorched through his systems, almost blocking every coherent thought from his processor except to hurt him as much as possible and draw as much energon as possible.

Worse, he knew he couldn't barter for her freedom. She was the blackmail. And even if Megatron gave his word, he knew he couldn't trust the word of a Decepticon. There was no way to guarantee her safety whether he did or did not agree to Megatron's stipulations.

Just to drive the nail in the coffin, Megatron spoke again. "I would advise taking me up on my offer, dearest Ratchet. I may just take it upon myself as a personal challenge to do more damage than I did the last time. You wouldn't want your actions to condemn Nightstalker to endure yet another rape, would you?" Ratchet flinched against his will, terrified for her and how it would traumatize her. "Or perhaps, I would do worse than that. Perhaps I could truly convince her to come back to me and become my queen. I do believe that would hurt more than another rape."

Ratchet shook, fury and horror petrifying him where he stood. The image of Nightstalker gutted after the rape glazed in his mind's eye, a small touch of bile wanting to rise. Instead, he finally shifted his gaze away from the screen to look at Megatron, his cheek twitching as he fixed the warlord with a glare that could have cut right through him.

"She would NEVER go back to you," Ratchet hissed quietly. His pulse hammered in his neck, and his servos clenched so tightly they shook. "We have taught her better than that._ I_ have taught her better than that." He let his blazing optics fix on Megatron's, glaring directly into the heart of his darkness as he snarled, "And I can PROMISE you beyond the shadow of a doubt that Nightstalker will never allow herself to be ruled by a sadistic monster such as yourself EVER again."

Megatron met his scowl with his own, neither mech backing down. "Are you absolutely sure, old friend?" His lip curled at the challenge Ratchet had unwittingly presented. "I have groomed her for this ever since she was a child. After all, a fitting savior of Cybertron must have a queen, should he not? The political propaganda would only further my status. And Nightstalker will be my toy, a tasty little tart for me to frag whenever I like."

Hot, infuriated energon flushed into Ratchet's cheeks. Before he could defend Nightstalker's honor again, Megatron cut him off, saying, "Now, give me your final answer, Ratchet. Your answer holds someone's suffering on the line."

Ratchet's jaw ground helplessly. He was caught. He knew he was caught. There was no way to . . . to even begin to tell Megatron no. Everything was accumulating in his processor, and he felt the weight of the world sinking onto his shoulders, indeed, the weight of Cybertron itself rested on him. He wanted to break beneath the weight of the load he carried. Closing his optics on the sight of Nightstalker trembling in the brig, Ratchet felt the words rip their way up his throat.

"I'll do it."

He glanced over to Megatron, hate consuming every circuit in his body as he looked into the face of pure evil. "But then, you already knew that, didn't you?" He had always known it. Even from the beginning when he had strung Ratchet along.

His answer was a revolting, macabre smirk.

* * *

><p>For being so worried, Nightfall had kept himself together quite well. It helped that he could lean on the immovable rock of his father, strong and composed, but that was beyond the point. The point was that for the first time, Nightfall had acted the most mature in a dire situation that had ever acted. Even to the point that when the crisis arose of their base being discovered, a simple plan had tricked Starscream.<p>

(Though, he honestly had to breathe a sigh of relief at that. He didn't know if Starscream would fall for it or if he had coordinates and WOULDN'T miss, so he had forced the Autobots to take cover in a different hangar just to be sure. And even then he was still a little paranoid the Decepticons would merely level the whole entire base, and he thanked Primus for Starscream's short-sightedness.)

Regardless of how things had been handled—including Nightfall not wanting to go outside and survey the damage; even the smell of the smoke was still making him a little sick. But in the end, Wheeljack and Raf of all people had teamed up to equip Laserbeak's chipped transponder with flight-worthy gear so it would lead them to the NEMESIS.

That night, as he left most of the group inside to watch Wheeljack and Raf work, he sent Ultra Magnus to the berth early, seeing how the mech was slowly running himself dry with work. Just to be sure, Nightfall peeked in the berth rooms to see Ultra Magnus collapsed on his berth, completely unconscious. His lips quirked for a moment before he shook his head and drew back.

Things were . . . quiet on base. He kinda enjoyed that. Crossing back outside, Nightfall walked over to his father standing at the far end of the base, and he glanced up at his father. Dreadwing glanced down, and his gaze softened.

"I was wondering when you would find me."

Nightfall nodded. "Yeah. It's . . . been a long day, y'know?"

Dreadwing gave a light chuckle. "That it has been." He glanced down at Nightfall. "How are you feeling?"

"Weak." His face twisted up. "A lot of pain. I'm sitting down, actually," and with his spontaneous decision, he sat his aft down on the ground, heaving a sigh and wincing when he felt the burns protesting at the movements. "You and Ultra Magnus did pretty good. Though I bet Ratchet'll pop rivets when he sees what you guys did."

Dreadwing's lips tipped up in amusement, and he kneeled down and sat with Nightfall, allowing him to lean against his side. "He would first crucify you for getting so damaged, and THEN he would curse Ultra Magnus and my handiwork."

"You're right about that," Nightfall said. "At least my armor is presentable again. Bulkhead's good at fixing stuff." His chest was wrapped tightly beneath his armor, as was most of his body. It restricted his movement only a tiny bit, and Nightfall was certain that Ratchet could have fixed him up so perfect he wouldn't have had that problem.

He vented softly. "Dad? We need to talk."

"I know."

Nightfall leaned his helm on his father's arm. "I'm . . . Well, I'm Prime. But, I'm also your son. And according to the Primes of old, I'm not supposed to have any bonds."

"I know," Dreadwing said again. He leaned down, pressing a small kiss to the top of Nightfall's helm. "You've explained it all to me."

"Yeah, well . . ." A cool breeze washed through the area, and Nightflier sighed, tilting his helm into its gentle caress. "Things are changing. I'm changing."

Dreadwing's voice was soft. "You're growing up."

His lips tipped up. "Yeah, only a little bit though." He chuckled softly before shaking his head. "So, I need you to keep doing what you've been doing for me. Letting me confront the problems while being my spine to strengthen me. And, while we're in public, I have to be your Prime. All right? But when we're all alone, like this, I just want to be Nightflier again. It'll just be us, and I won't have to worry about being a Prime then, all right?"

His father gently bumped their helms together affectionately. "Of course. I'd have it no other way." He vented gently against him. "You need to talk to Arcee too."

Nightfall peeked up at him. "Yeah? Yeah. I just . . . don't know what I'm going to tell her."

"Just tell her what you need to. She's a strong and mature femme. She will understand."

Nightfall's lips tipped up before he could stop them. "Yeah? You really like her, don't you?"

He heard a deep chuckle rumble his father's chassis. "She is good for you."

Nightfall glanced up to him, and his lips twisted as he saw the hidden amusement in his father's optics. "What?"

Dreadwing shook his head. "Nothing." Nightfall pursed his lips at his father's apparent inside joke, a little miffed that he wasn't going to explain himself. Dreadwing stood, saying, "I'll go get her for you."

"Thank you," Nightfall said wryly, sitting crisscross on the ground. His wings perked, and he exhaled, letting them sag as he relaxed. The instant he did that, he felt his father brush against his spark.

_She's going to be fine._

The smallest of trembles shook his armor._ How do you know?_

_ She is a strong femme too. If she is anything like her mother, she can take care of herself._

His wings fluttered, and his servos clenched. _If Megatron gets . . . if he . . . If—_

_ Don't dwell on the ifs. They'll just consume you. Relax. Trust in her and Ratchet. He will not allow any harm to befall her._

_ By the Celestial Spires, I hope so . . ._

"Nightfall?"

He nearly jumped out of his protoform, whirling around so fast he nearly fell over. "Great Cybertron!" His hand smacked to his chassis where his spark had galloped into motion, and he calmed himself, narrowing his optics at Arcee. "You scared the primal Primus out of me!"

He watched her lips pull a little bit before they fell flat again. She bit her lip. "You needed to talk to me?"

Nightfall nodded, patting the ground next to him. "Yeah, just for a second." She seemed to hesitate for some reason before sitting down, and Nightfall frowned at her. "What's wrong?"

She chewed on her lip harder. She dropped her helm, hands squirming in her lap. "It's just . . ."

"What?"

Her whisper was almost inaudible. "You're a Prime." Arcee looked up suddenly, and Nightfall felt his spark jump when he saw what she had been hiding-so much awe that it was almost fear. "You're PRIME. I—I see it now. When you came back . . . When you came out of the fire . . . You were DIFFERENT. I could see it. You moved differently, you spoke differently, you acted differently."

Nightfall frowned, leaning forward to her. "Arcee, stop. Just because I'm a little different doesn't mean I'm a different person. I'm still me." When Arcee still looked at him differently than she had before, Nightfall sighed and quirked his mouth plates up. "Now c'mon, Arcee. Don't be like that. You've fragged the ever-loving daylights out of me."

She scowled at him, snapping, "Don't joke about this! I'm serious!"

He flipped up his hands in surrender before she could get angrier. "Easy. So am I."

"Then that was no way to joke about it."

"Arcee." He grabbed her servos before she could yank away, and he looked across from her in the cool of the night. His lips curved gently. "That's exactly my point that you've interfaced with me. You've already had me in such an intimate way, and just because I'm Prime doesn't change things, only a little."

"Of course it changes things," she said, trying to yank her hands away from him. He gripped her wrists tighter, refusing to let her. "You're—You're my PRIME! I can't be fraternizing with my Prime!"

"You've already BEEN fraternizing with your Prime," he said cheekily, smiling at her. "To the point that my second in command nearly broke his processor when we blew it out of proportions. And proceeded to laugh so hard about it that I almost twisted an axel, you too."

She snapped her jaw shut and looked down, shaking her head. "That—That was before. You didn't really believe you were a Prime then."

"And why does it change so much now?"

"It just does!" Arcee snapped. "This would be like me making a move on OPTIMUS of all mechs!"

Nightfall frowned. "I'm NOT Optimus. I'm still me, Nightflier, I've just had the title of Prime bestowed on me with a new rank and a new name. That's all, Arcee—a TITLE. It doesn't change who I am."

Arcee shook her head even more vigorously, almost so that she whipped her helm. She abruptly shot to her peds, taking with her her hands, and Nightfall blinked up at her as she stammered, "It's different. I shouldn't have been doing this regardless. You're my Prime. I shouldn't have ever—"

Nightfall leapt to his peds, scowling. "You're using this to push me away, aren't you? Arcee, I'm still the same! That was the whole point of having you come out here, so I could tell you that I didn't want things to change between us! I don't care WHAT'S associated with the Prime title, I'm doing things differently than the Primes of old! Maybe they are supposed to command reverence, fear, and respect, but I'm not losing any personal attachments I have, and that includes you."

"I know what happens to mechs who get attached to me!" she snapped. "And I know what happened to Elita! You shouldn't take the chance!"

Primus, she could make him so ANGRY! He almost wasn't even aware of his servos grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. "I know that, Arcee! I know it, I do, and I'm willing to take the chance! Why aren't you? Ha! You scared?"

Her cold blue optics flashed fire. "DON'T you accuse me of being scared!"

"Then don't you run from the problem!"

"You're the one running from the problem!" she shot back angrily, face flushed in her agitation as she glared right up into his face. "The problem is that you are a PRIME! You're running from your duty! Primes aren't supposed to get involved with others, especially their soldiers! Scrap like that impairs your judgment!"

He shook her again, servos clenching tight. "I NEED you to fraternize with me!" he shouted back at her. "I need you to keep me sane and grounded! I need to be able to lean on you when I have no one left to lean on! I need—I WANT you to fraternize with me, Arcee, I care about you too much!"

"That's exactly the problem!" she shouted back. "You shouldn't care this much about me! You can't! You have to be ready to send me to die! You have to be ready—"

His mouth crushed against hers, silencing her every argument on the spot. He felt her fists hitting him, and Nightfall grunted, grabbing her wrists, forcing her arms back, struggling to overpower her as he kissed her as hard as he could, so angry and so frustrated and so hungry for her he let her trip the wire of his control. She yanked her helm away, and Nightfall wrapped an arm around her neck, forcing her back to him. She bit his bottom lip viciously, drawing energon, and he wrestled her until he got her locked in a hold.

"Does that feel like I've changed?" he snapped at her raggedly, venting so hard he almost couldn't control himself. Arcee didn't answer, but only struggled harder, making their balance wobble. "Are these lips any different from before? Do I kiss you different? Do I taste different? Is this passion any different than before?"

He kissed her again, fighting her mouth and body to make her understand. The faintest whimper caught in her vocalizer, and he heard it, Primus, he HEARD that whimper, and he grabbed the back of her helm, forcing her head back and deepening the kiss on a heady slant. She continued to beat at his chassis, but it was weak, her fists pummeling at him without strength as she began to slump in his arms. He wrapped his arm around her waist, dragging her close, and their hips hit each other, hot and sizzling.

He wrenched his lips from her again, but only to snarl, "I'm NOT any different, Arcee. I'm still me, and whatever's between us is still here! I can feel it, and I know you can too! Try to deny it!" He kissed her hard again, and her servos plucked weakly at his chassis. She sank into him, melting from the heat that consumed her. "You can't deny it," he hissed raggedly. "I became Prime BECAUSE I care! What good is a Prime without compassion? Without anger? Without passion like this!"

He seized her again, mouth devouring her swollen lips, and this time, the fight had been sucked from her. Her mouth opened, and Nightfall's glossia delved inside, tasting her, drowning in the intoxicating heat that rose between them. With a frustrated growl, Nightfall hoisted Arcee up, and her legs immediately locked around his waist. He stalked off in the general direction of the berth rooms, spark crackling with anger and hunger. He parted just long enough to bite one more thing out:

"And this time, I'M topping!"

He dragged her inside, and he threw her down on the first berth he found. Kissing over her hungrily, he grabbed one of her thighs, hooking it around his waist. A jagged moan clawed its way out of his throat when he felt her fingers claw into his back and sharply stimulate the sensitive protoform beneath. He arched, wings flexing, mouth ravaging hers.

But, he literally FELT a presence with them, and a sharp clearing of a throat and tapping of a finger made him jolt.

He nearly threw himself off of Arcee when he found Ultra Magnus standing above them, arms crossed over his broad chassis as he glared particularly hard.

"Correct me if I am mistaken, Nightfall: you promised me you wouldn't do this again, our medic and your sister are kidnapped, and you are about to interface in Bumblebee's berth."

Nightfall screwed his optics shut. "I . . ."

Before he could come up with an appropriate response, he felt a massive hand grab his shoulder, and he squeaked with Arcee as Ultra Magnus literally hoisted them up and tossed them out of the berth rooms. They fell with a tumble in the dirt, and Nightfall heard his SIC say, "Now. I am going to get some recharge, as my Prime ORDERED me to do in the first place."

The doors slammed shut. For a minute, both Nightfall and Arcee simply laid there in the sand that night, sucking in vents to cool them down after working themselves up so much. Finally, Nightfall found his vocalizer.

"I, um . . . This is my fault. I kissed you. And took you in there when I—Primus, I even ORDERED him to the berth to get some rest. And checked on him before I came out here!"

He heard the faintest laugh. "You really haven't changed a bit, have you?"

Nightfall glanced over at the same time Arcee did, and their optics locked. And, with that one glance, he knew things were back to normal. Their lips twitched with giggles, and then they began laughing again, snickering and howling with tears at their predicament as they lapsed back to where they had been before.

When they finally controlled themselves, Nightfall reached over, and he took her hand as they laid in the dirt. Finally, after a minute, he asked, "Hey, Arcee?"

"Yeah?"

He bit his lip. Hard. "Wanna do it in Magnus's ship?"

She choked on a laugh. "He's not using it right now."

Nightfall began to snicker again, shaking his head. "We could put it on autopilot."

"Right in the driver's seat."

"He's gonna hate us."

"It'll be hot though." She rolled over him suddenly, and he found her face broad with a grin and a wink. "Besides, he doesn't have to know."

Nightfall chuckled, grinning and nuzzling her lips. "I do so LOVE your style." He sat up and turned around, wiggling his fingers. "C'mon! I'll give you a piggy back ride over there since I can't carry you like a bride or like potatoes."

Arcee just stopped and shook her head. "Fli-Ni, no. Do I need to remind you that you're a wounded mech?"

"They're just some burns," he said. He wiggled his butt. "Come on. I'll be fine!"

"And just WHO is taking the flight in the morning and who will need his recharge?"

"My father," he replied smartly. "He wants me to rest as much as possible, but you'll make me sleep really good tonight, right?" Nightfall moved closer, winking. "C'mon, Arcee, you know you wanna."

She rolled her optics, muttering, "You really HAVEN'T changed . . ." She huffed. "Fine." She hopped up on his back, snuggled awkwardly around his wings. "And just for the record, kissing me was cheating."

Nightfall grinned, jogging towards Ultra Magnus's ship. "Just as long as I'm winning."

"And I hate to break it to you, but . . ." and she kissed his neck, sending a tremble down his back. "I'M going to top again."

"Oh no you're not!" he shot back. "I am SO topping, and you know it. You were melting like putty."

"Just because you took me off guard. You're still the virgin of this relationship, Fli-Ni, and I'll be topping."

"Arcee. I'm not a virgin, and I'm topping."

"I bet you being forced to wax Ultra Magnus's ship—no, ALL the vehicles of this base—that you're not topping."

"Hah! I take that bet. Don't feel bad when you're up to your elbows in wax!"

He took her inside Magnus's ship, and he sat her in the driver's seat. He waggled his brows. "Kinky. Where to, mademoiselle?"

She threw her arms around his neck. "Oh Captain, my Captain! Take me wherever you please!"

Nightfall snickered, and he reached around, picking an old route and setting the autopilot. The ship hummed and jerked as it took off, but once it was smooth sailing, he leaned down and began to kiss her again, murmuring, "You are an extremely crazy femme, you know that?"

"Says the juvenile Prime sitting on my lap."

"Ooh, look at that, I'm already topping."

She kissed him back hard, stealing his breath away and setting his soul on fire. She smirked back, cocky optics twinkling.

"Not for long."

* * *

><p>Nightstalker was sitting in her cell, and her optics darted around compulsively. It was as if every creak and groan of the ship was someone coming for her, coming to get her after so long. She had raged at Knockout for so long she hadn't thought to keep an eye on her inner clock, and now she had no idea how long she had been on the ship. Days? Maybe her imagination was getting to her. It couldn't have been that long, could it?<p>

With a sudden epiphany, Nightstalker leapt to her peds in agitation. This was what it had been like for her torture victims, wasn't it? When she left them alone for so long. This was what they felt like. They dreaded every single sound. They counted every particle of dust to pass the time, just to keep their minds occupied and off of their impending doom. They KNEW the inevitable was coming, just not WHEN.

As Nightstalker's knees knocked, she groused that perhaps this was a fitting punishment for her. She, a former torturer, about to receive the very same punishment, if not worse, than what she had given. Her wings fluttered rapidly, straining against the clamp. She deserved this, didn't she? She had to pay penance at some point in her life. Maybe that time had come?

Another heavy clang split the air. Nightstalker jerked and her wrists snagged on the cuffs. Someone was coming. Oh dear Primus, this time it was true, someone was coming, she could hear their footsteps!

Ice chilled in her energon tanks, and her fists clenched so tightly she felt her fingers cutting into her palms. She knew the sound of those ped steps. Oh Primus, she KNEW, she had heard them all her life, she knew who's weight made that solid step, she KNEW the sound of that dogmatic, commanding presence. Her back smacked against the wall of her cell, the one dim light of the brig flickering and waning as a code was pressed in and the door opened up on a shrieking whiz.

He came in, silver paint job gleaming under the weak light, and her spark stopped, full of terror and paranoia as she heard a loud rattling in the air. Her vocalizer fused tight as she watched him smile, baring his sharp denta.

"Nightstalker!" He walked forward, extending his servos as if she were a long, lost friend. "It's good to see you again!"

She pressed against the wall, orange optics flared wide and stuck like a deer in headlights. He had come for her. She had known he would, but now that he was here, she found she had no means of self-defense. She didn't know what to do or how to handle him, and he was coming towards her, wearing that smile.

"It's been far too long," Megatron said, and she watched his mouth frown, brows cinching. "I can't believe what that idiot did to you. I told him to keep you here so I could find you, not tie you up like you're a prisoner. You are one of us, and you are always welcome here."

He loomed above her, so tall, so powerful, and so terrifying. A breaking squeak scratched from her vocals when his hand reached down to her, but he merely turned off the stasis cuffs and unlocked the clamp, allowing her free. She almost collapsed in terror, ankles weak and energon tanks churning.

"There. Now isn't that better?" She wanted to shake her head. She wanted to say something. Anything. But she couldn't find any air, and she couldn't unlock her jaw or get her glossia to work. Megatron smiled again, and she flinched when his hand took her wrist, lifting her arm into view. "Silver!" he said amicably. "The color looks beautiful on you, Nights."

For some reason, with his disconcerting kindness and concern to her, all Nightstalker could think was that she had taken the same exact color that Megatron wore. They were both silver. She really did want him, didn't she? Subconsciously. No! No, she didn't, she knew what he had done, and she knew where she belonged.

Right?

Megatron frowned again, and he knelt down to her height. "Nightstalker? Are you all right?"

"No!" Finally, her vocalizer unlocked long enough for her to squeeze some words out, thin and airy with fear. "D-Don't touch me!"

Understanding clicked in his optics, and she watched as he rocked back on his heels. "Ah. You're still angry with me over that last accident."

She wanted to scream. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't an accident!

Megatron vented heavily, and he took her hand more firmly, pressing it almost tenderly between his servos. "Nightstalker, I haven't seen you, so I haven't been able to tell you, but I'm sorry. I didn't mean those things I said to you, and I didn't mean to do what I did. You just . . . made me so angry I couldn't control myself. I took care of you all your life, shared myself with you, cared about you, and you accused my affections for rape?" He shook his head sadly back and forth. "I'm sorry. I know you shouldn't forgive me for that, but I'm begging you. It was just a misunderstanding. You're all I have. You're the only one who knows me for me."

Nightstalker shook her head. No, that wasn't true! He wasn't . . . What if . . . He had never shown her anger before. Even when she was with the Autobots, he hadn't shown her anger. He had never struck her, never even raised a hand to her. He had never hurt her before. Was it all her fault? She always screwed things up . . .

She shook her head wildly, whispering, "No . . . You—You're tricking me!"

"Don't say things like that," Megatron said, hurt wounding his voice as he looked at her with ultimate betrayal in his optics. "I've never lied to you, Nights. I've missed you. I've missed having you around to talk to, to go on flights with, to be with you. I want you back where you belong."

"No!" She yanked on her arm, but he didn't release her, and she pressed into the wall, caught like a bug. "You're lying! I—I belong with the Autobots!"

"I'm not lying, Nights," he said, that silver tongue weaving an intricate web in the design just right to catch his prey. His helm dipped down, and her spark leapt, in fear and in elation when he kissed the back of her hand like he used to, and he lifted humbled optics to her. "I miss you. I want you back. I want you to be my queen, the way it used to be. Please, I'm sorry, Nightstalker. Please forgive me."

Hot, confused, angry tears beaded in her optics. He was wrong! She couldn't . . . Forgive him? After what he did to her? She could never! She couldn't ever do that! He was using her, he had to be . . .

One of his hands reached up to her face, and a clawed finger dipped to flick the wetness away. "Don't cry."

The falsified tenderness was so REAL. It sounded just like it used to. No, more than it used to. She had never heard him so meek in his life. He NEVER showed weakness. Not to anyone. No one but her. She was the only one he let his walls down to. Her insides jolted, ripping in half in a cruel event of tug of war.

_Cliffjumper, Cliffjumper, help me, please! Please! Ratchet, please, someone help me! I need help, please, please . . . !_

He was so large and imposing. He absolutely dwarfed her, covering her every exit, and Nightstalker trembled, hearing her armor clattering she shook so hard. "This isn't true. It's not, you're just lying . . ."

Her words were too weak to hold any iron behind them. Her wings fluttered rapidly, and she felt her spark hit her peds when his hand tipped her chin up to him. "What do I have to do to get you to understand, Nights?" he asked quietly, and her spark wrenched and shuddered when she felt his thumb stroke her bottom lip.

_NO NO NO NO—_

She couldn't let him, she couldn't! Wildly, she tried to think of Cliffjumper, and for a moment, he was so hazy in her vision she almost couldn't bring him back, but she could remember that warm laughter in her audios and the tender touch that always soothed her spark. She twisted, trying to get away from Megatron, but she forgot she was backed up against a wall with no escape, trapped and tiny.

"Please, Nights," he murmured softly. She felt her spark slamming on the inside of her chassis, so hard it felt like it was going to leap from her spark chamber doors. He leaned forward, closing for the kill. "Just one little kiss . . . Let me show you how much I want you back . . ."

He had her. He snared her, hooker line and sinker. Against her will, Nightstalker let his mouth touch hers, and she felt that heady little slant, that perfect caress that stirred the lust in her no one else could. There was the tiniest curve of his lips as he deepened the kiss and wrapped an arm around her, bringing her flush against him as he sensed his dominance persevering again. For a second, Nightstalker returned his kiss, hungry, lost in the taste of him so intoxicating, an addictive drug that overcame her every sense.

But this kiss . . . Wasn't like the other kisses she had received. He was the only one who kissed her like this. Even Optimus, consumed with lust, had kissed her better than this, as much attentive to her needs as his own. And Cliffjumper . . . Her spark screamed out. He was always tender. Even on one of her darkest nights when she couldn't resist an interface that resembled the ones she had with Megatron, he was ALWAYS tender, kissing her deeply, giving her his entire spark, and kissing her with every ounce of love he had wrapped up inside.

Wildly, she began to fight. She kicked. She hit. She tried to move away, but his overpowering arms crushed her close, and his mouth ravaged over hers, trying to draw a breaking moan from her that would ultimately cause the lust to win. Refusing to give up, Nightstalker lifted a clawed hand and slammed her fingers beneath the plating in his cheeks, and she let the lava flow, stinging him.

He cursed and swore, releasing her with such force she slammed into the wall. Shaking, this time with anger instead of fear, she shouted out at the irate warlord, "Let me GO! You don't care about me! You never have! You just used me! All the time!"

Suddenly, from nowhere, she felt strength pouring into her circuits, a will fused with the words she had been hearing ever since the rape and the love she had felt, TRUE love, and a love that she would wield with a clout.

"You just—You've used me! All my life!" Hot anger flushed into her cheeks as she glared at him, so angry as everything in her life suddenly fell neatly into one little pile. And she HATED the look of it. "You just let me live so you could use me! You just wanted someone you could mess with and mold into whatever you wanted, and since I was a kid I had no idea what you were doing to me! I didn't know it was wrong, I just had to let you raise me because I didn't know any better! And you wanted to make sure I would never have the compassion my mother had, so you gave me over to Airachnid so she could rip it all from me!"

She tore into him with all she had, so tired of it all she couldn't hold back now. The lava had dried on his cheek, and his glowering red optics didn't so much as flinch away from her as he stared right back. "You wanted me to be a perfect little queen, a pretty little footstool to frag whenever you liked and someone who wouldn't share in the power you wielded. And that one little decision I had in the torture chambers to save Cliffjumper messed everything up! See, the Autobots got a hold of me, and I finally saw people who REALLY cared about each other. I saw REAL love, and it was given to me!"

Nightstalker shook her head, orange optics blazing as she stared into the face of the mech who had twisted her life and soul into something almost unable to be fixed. And now, right now, in the heat of her anger, there wasn't any fear as she told him exactly what he needed to hear. "And on top of that, this was all about OPTIMUS, wasn't it?" She gave a bewildered laugh, shaking her head at the ironic pity of it all. "You were so jealous of Optimus having Elita that you just HAD to have someone for yourself! You killed Elita and you molded me into exactly what you wanted, just to snub it in Optimus's face! Because if you couldn't be Prime, if you couldn't have Elita, neither could Optimus!"

Her lip curled as her fists clenched. "And all this time, I TRUSTED you! I TRUSTED you! I had no reason to doubt you, and I respected you! I trusted you, and I believed in you! I could only see the good in you, and it's blinded me long enough. I am NOT your toy, I am NOT something to be used, and I WON'T EVER go back to you! Got it? I am an Autobot, and I know where I belong! Where I am LOVED!"

Nightstalker finally came to a halt, vents ragged with fury as she tried to control herself. Megatron barely even blinked at her, a dark storm whirling in the depths of his optics. His brooding, blood-red optics narrowed.

"Is that so? I should have known Optimus would have messed you up."

"No, he fixed me," Nightstalker snapped to his face. "He HEALED me. He taught me the difference between right and wrong, and without him in my life, I would STILL be bowing over for you. When he kissed me, he opened my optics to what lust really was, and I'm NOT falling for it again."

Megatron's optics darkened, black wrath rising. "He KISSED you?"

Her lip curled again. "And kissed me better than you ever did."

Her words went too far, breaking the straw on the camel's back. A silver hand flashed forward, and Nightstalker grunted when that servo slammed into her neck and forced her into the wall, almost snapping her neck with one blow. She wheezed, and all of the sudden, now that he was retaliating, her courage was nipped at the bud. Jerking, she wheezed in a thin vent.

"Is that so?" he growled, rage making his grip tighten. He lifted her up, driving her into the wall again with such force that spasms jolted through her body. Her servos flashed up, but his other hand grabbed them, knowing her cute little trick that she had already used. "You ungrateful little WRETCH. He's stolen everything from me, and now he's taken you as well!" His voice rose to a thunderous roar, echoing in the lonely room. He shook her violently, making her legs whip. The world swam in her vision.

"You worthless little whore! Throwing yourself around like a little play thing for everyone to frag as they please! Well tell me, did Optimus frag you good? DID HE?" He shook her furiously again, and Nightstalker tried to get her vocalizer to work, to tell him that he hadn't, but she couldn't get anything out but indecipherable choking noises.

"Well, I hope you enjoyed it! I've had enough of tending to you! If you want to be an Autobot—FINE. You're an AUTOBOT. And as such, I'll treat you as one!"

Nightstalker screamed when she felt herself thrown across the room. Before she could gather her bearings, she felt his servo clamp down tight on her face, and his claws cut into her paint as he roughly dragged her through the halls of the _NEMESIS._

Nightstalker screamed. She screamed and kicked and thrashed, twisting and writhing and yanking as he effortlessly towed her away, but she SCREAMED. Her vocalizer's shrieks ripped across the ship, echoing across the halls as she made a terrifying spectacle of herself. Vehicons scattered at the sight of them. They left the warlord to his means as he dragged her off, and Nightstalker felt her spark about to burst with terror. His berth? Was it his berth? He wanted to rape her to death right in his BERTH? The sickening, cruel irony of it all made bile rise in the back of her throat, but she didn't stop screaming until Megatron suddenly halted, and a door sprang open.

"This one has outlived her use. She's not much, but perhaps she'll be a tasty SNACK!"

Nightstalker felt herself hurled forward. With a grunt, she hit the ground, and she looked up just in time to see the doors whiz shut on Megatron's back. She leapt forward, shouting, and her fists hit the door that locked, stranding her outside. A cold chill settled in her gut. Whirling around, her wide, orange optics looked across the way to the dragon that had lifted his head from his lounge. She collapsed back against the door as he rose, blocking her path to freedom, and his head came within range of her, easily capable of swallowing her without even snapping one piece of metal she was so tiny.

Gleaming yellow optics narrowed, blinking at her. For a second, she didn't realize she was hyperventilating, but Predaking transformed, and the hulking mech glared haughtily down at her, a femme that barely came up to his knee.

"He is right, Autobot. You shall be no more than a snack for the main course."

Ratchet. Spark skipping irregularly, Nightstalker managed to rasp, "W-wait, please—"

"Pitiful as you are," he continued contemptuously, "you are still an Autobot. And as such, you shall atone for the lives of my Predacon brethren with your very life." His yellow optics blazed with anger, pinning her to the floor.

"I hope you will scream as they did."


	69. Old Endings, New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

**Holy SHIT this chapter is long. O.O**

**On the other hand, I'm late because school and Thanksgiving swamped me, and on top of that I was combating a writer's block. On the bright side, you guys get an awesome LONG chapter in return! :D Good luck trying to cover everything in a review, but I welcome them all even if you can only keyboard smash! *throws heart confetti***

* * *

><p>"Nightflier? What are you doing?"<p>

Glancing up briefly, Nightfall gave a rueful smile to Casino, Prophet, and Angel. "Just waxing."

"Well, we can see that," Casino replied with an arc of her brows. Nightfall returned his attentions to the land rover as she said, "But WHY are you doing that?"

He tried to keep the flush down, but he was sure it still managed to singe his cheeks. "I lost a bet," he said evasively.

Angel laughed, raking his blond hair out of his face while Casino tutted her tongue. "Aw, come on now, dear, didn't I teach you better than that?"

Nightfall snorted, and he nudged her away with the tip of his ped. "Please. You didn't teach me anything."

Arcee had added the stipulation that he could only use a rag instead of an actual buffer at the last second, so Nightfall had reluctantly acquiesced. Well . . . Not really reluctantly, per se, since he had been basking in the afterglow of a . . . heh, VERY processor blowing job.

"So?" Prophet elbowed him. "Who got you in for what?"

"Nothing much worth telling," Nightfall said as nonchalantly as he could, but at the same time his face decided to flush fifty shades of red.

Casino laughed in delight. "Look at him blush!" she exclaimed in the vicinity of the hangar. Her voice echoed slightly because there was so little noise in the all but abandoned region of the base. "Now, if anything can make you blush like that, Fli-Ni, it's a story worth telling."

Angel even grinned. "Come on now, Fli-Ni. Fess it up. We've told you embarrassing stories of our own, so I think it's time for a little payback."

Nightfall chewed his bottom lip, keeping his optics blatantly pinned to the streaking wax, almost fanatically glued to his work. "I lost a bet to Arcee," he finally admitted.

Casino busted out even more while the men snickered. "And what'd she get you for?"

Nightfall felt his face burning hot. "She topped again."

He pursed his lips when the resounding laughter was so loud it could have been heard from the very _NEMESIS_ itself. Casino was doubled up so far she couldn't breathe, Angel was crying, and Prophet's face was as red as his hair. Nightfall's wings flared, perturbed, but he just snorted slightly under his breath, muttering, "I don't see why it's funny. I'M the one who got some . . ."

That only made them laugh harder. It was finally Casino who waved her hands, pleading, "I HAVE to tell Boobie this! She'll absolutely die!" and raced off before Nightfall could stop her from spreading the word with juicy gossip.

While Prophet struggled to contain his snickers, Angel wiped his eyes and shook his head while raising his hands. "Hey. As a man who has taken more than he's given, I assure you that you've got the more pampered end of the stick, Fli-Ni."

Prophet's eyes bugged. He elbowed Angel, saying in indignation, "Hey, I didn't know that about you! And I told you about the incident with my sister's friend and the honey, and everything!"

Angel rolled his eyes. "Well, you never asked."

"Yes I did! You just never told me anything!"

Angel seemed to consider this for a second before he just gave a shrug and said, "Well, I guess I just like Nightflier better than you."

A snorting laugh caught in Nightfall's vocalizer as he watched the two men squabble. "What? Hey, you take that back! I am your best bud, and we always will be! Fli-Ni, you know I've known this scrawny kid since grade school?"

Nightfall shook his head as he put the finishing touches on the land rover he was working on and then leaned back comfortably to talk. "Actually, no, I didn't."

Prophet waved his hands. "Pfft, we go WAY back." Angel elbowed Prophet, seemingly trying to get the man's attention, but when it was only a few people, Prophet's mouth was hard to stop. "Can you actually believe that I knocked him off the monkey bars and broke his arm? I always joke that was the time he decided he wanted to be a doctor!" Angel elbowed him again, a little more impatiently so that Prophet grabbed his ribs, shooting him a frown. "Hey! What?"

Angel jerked his head in the direction Casino had ran. "She's finally gone, and it's just us . . ."

For a moment, Prophet just stared, and then he remembered. "OH!" Whirling back around to Nightfall, he blurted, "Dude, what's up with you and your dad?"

Nightfall blinked as Angel groaned, exclaiming, "Prophet! Seriously, do you not have an ounce of class?"

Lip curling at them, Nightfall interjected, "Well, it's fine. But I can honestly say that I don't know what you guys are talking about."

Angel scrubbed his hand over his face, pushing blond hair back from his face. Blue eyes frowned. "Well, since we're just being really blunt . . . Nightflier, the last time we saw you, you and your father were duking it out pretty bad."

"Beating the tar out of each other," Prophet echoed. "You were leaking blue blood and shattered glass. Did you really think we were just going to let that rest?"

The smile faded quickly from Nightfall's face at what they were bringing up, and he vented slightly in frustration. He really shouldn't have expected them to just take that one without an explanation. Picking up the rag and wax to distract himself, Nightfall set to work on the next Jeep, armor flattening as he visibly clammed up. "It was nothing," he said, hating how unconvincing he sounded. "We were just venting some frustrations."

"By beating the tar out of each other," Prophet repeated dubiously. "I'm having a hard time swallowing that one, Nightflier. How about the truth, eh?"

His face scrunched up. Attacking the Jeep with more force than absolutely necessary, Nightfall muttered, "Look, it's personal."

There was a pause. "All right, fine. We understand."

"Don't listen to his sarcasm," Angel interjected. "You don't have to tell us anything."

A frustrated click fell from Nightfall's vocalizer at that, wings fluttering restlessly. "Look, I really can't say," he muttered. "It's just . . ." Blasting out a vent, Nightfall looked up at them, biting his bottom lip. "It's something involving Nights, and I can't say anything out of respecting her privacy. And on top of that—Well, just . . . Just know that the fight helped things. It didn't do anything bad but a few dings." When Angel gave him a look, he raised his hands in surrender and relented, "Fine. A couple nasty bites, but everything's going to be all right."

"Yeah?" Prophet frowned, crossing his arms. "How's your sister? And the Doc? We heard they had gotten taken captive."

His wings twitched before he could stop them. He dropped his big blue optics back down to the Jeep, a prickling feeling crawling along his circuits. "Y-Yeah. Dad's out right now trying to follow the transponder of a Con back to the warship . . ."

There was a pregnant pause as an uncomfortable silence stretched over them, and it took Nightfall a moment to realize his servo was shaking. Taking a deep breath and trying to control it, he was grateful when Angel didn't state the obvious quaking.

"You okay?"

Nightfall nodded vigorously. "I'm fine. It—It's just . . ." A stuttering vent crawled up his in takes, and his wings shivered. "It's just really, REALLY bad that she's with Megatron again . . ."

Prophet frowned. "How bad?"

"Bad enough that I'm seriously resisting the urge to claw through the metal of this vehicle. That bad. Bad enough that I KNEW I shouldn't have let my father go, I KNEW I should have went instead!" Nightfall swore in frustration, servos balling up in fists. "I KNEW I was going to be too restless to wait around! I knew it!"

There was a beat where he seized in several sharp breaths, and then Angel finally said, "So it's not just because of the bet that you're doing this. You just really need to get your mind off things."

When Nightfall gave a jerking nod, Prophet tugged on the loop holes in his pants. "So . . . We've established that Megatron is the bad guy." Nightfall nodded again. Prophet hesitated. "And Nightstalker used to be a Con, right?" Another world-bouncing nod. "So . . ." He paused. "Nightflier, was she . . . you know . . . with him?"

His vents flared open with one giant gust of air before they snapped back tightly. "Yes," he replied with a clipped tone.

A sudden swear filled the room, surprising because Nightfall knew neither Angel nor Prophet succumbed to swearing. "He—Nightflier, look at me when I ask this. Did he . . . You know what I'm thinking. Did he . . . He didn't."

Nightfall's lips thinned. He took his servo away from the vehicle before he serrated the metal with his claws. "He did."

Blood suffused into Angel's cheeks. The medic swore again under his breath, turning and stalking away several steps as he all but shook with anger. Prophet blinked, taking in the scene, and then, he deduced the same thing. The blood leeched from his cheeks.

"Nightflier . . . Oh my God . . ."

That image glazed in his mind. Nightfall felt his energon tanks roll, and he stood abruptly to his peds, stalking off several steps and wings fanning. Angel was the first one to find his voice again.

"Is she all right?"

"I don't know!" Nightfall snapped angrily, wings flexing sharply downwards. He whirled on the two smaller humans, spark so entangled with fear he wasn't sure how he could see straight. "She's never really said what it did to her! So maybe it fragged up her processor, I don't know, and even if it did, I guess she's been healing. She ACTS like she's doing better, but I don't really know, because she never lets me in! And on top of that, she's BACK with Megatron, and Primus knows what he could do to her—!"

He choked off in terror. Primus, what he could have ALREADY DONE TO HER. His spark pump began beating twice that of what it should be. What if he had already raped her?

His knees wobbled as the doubts began to press in, dark and realistic. Angel jumped forward. "Nightflier! Whoa, calm down! Deep breaths. Calm down." Shaking, feeling the blood leeching from every end of his body until he began to feel numb, Nightfall trembled and fell on his knees, sucking in tight breaths. "Be calm. Relax. That's right. It's going to be all right."

Prophet craned his head up at him. "Fli-Ni, your vent things. Open those up, it helps you breathe."

Struggling to comply, Nightfall bent his helm down, shoulders expanding and contracting with huge breaths as he tried to stop the jagged in takes. Fraction by fraction, he managed to loosen his taunt muscles to let his vents relax, and they slowly began to gape open so he could breathe better and cycle in fresh air to his heating systems. His wings fluttered, and his fists clenched.

"Nightflier." His audio receptors twitched at the sound of his name. "It's okay. Set your mind at ease. Ratchet won't let anything happen to her and you know it."

"That's right," Prophet echoed Angel. "She's tough. She's going to be fine."

Nightfall felt his wings sag, and he gave a bark of a laugh. "Funny. That's what my father said."

Prophet nodded, patting his knee. "Then see? Listen to him. Your dad's smart; and so are you. It's gonna be just fine—Wait, Nightflier, where are you going?"

Standing abruptly in the middle of Prophet's sentence, Nightfall shrugged off his insecurities, standing up tall as he reported, "My dad. He's in a dogfight. I need to be in the command center."

Prophet's eyes popped. "Wha—Okay! Well, we'll clean up your mess, take care of yourself!"

Nightfall nodded. "I will." He paused before going out the door, however. He turned back towards the two humans that had allowed him to blow steam off on them, and his optics softened.

"Guys? Thanks."

* * *

><p>Her processor didn't quite calculate the speed at which that massive, clawed hand raked down at her. The only thing keeping up with the jittering speed of her spark was her pain receptors. Jarring pain exploded in Nightstalker's chassis, and the floor left her peds in the same second that her back slammed into the closed doors. Her helm whiplashed backwards, whipping the back of her head into the wall, and taunt, straining pain flared through every nerve ending when her sensitive wings bore the brunt of her weight.<p>

Clotting fear filled her vocalizer. Trying vainly to shake the stars from her helm, Nightstalker scrambled to her peds, staggering awkwardly before a palm grabbed her face and gravity ceased to exist. For the briefest second, she was weightless, and she saw the clouds, the deck, and the clouds once more before she hit the ground, metal screeching in a grisly skid that stripped her paint and gave her a budding case of metal burn.

The pressure building up in her vocalizer was overwhelming, and her lips trembled. She had to get out of here, she had to get OUT—Panicked and hyperventilating with terror, Nightstalker tried to find her peds again, but she lurched to the side, her internal diagnostics running wild and equilibrium pitching.

A second later, something HEAVY landed on her right wing, a sickening crunch assaulted her audio receptors, and the dam holding back her fright broke.

Pain seared up her sensors to an overwhelming degree. Screaming shrilly, Nightstalker bucked in the effort to slip her snapped wing from beneath Predaking's ped, but the motion did little more than aggravate her wound further. Shrieking in terror, Nightstalker curled up defensively as she heard the telltale sounds of transformation above her and the guttural snarl of a beast.

Jaws clamped around her, serrated teeth missing her by inches, and Nightstalker screamed as she was again thrown across the hull of the ship. This time, she crashed into the low-hanging ceiling of the "kennel" and the sheer force of which she hit the protrusion made her metal dent in and the covering to break off. She tumbled in a mess on the floor, coughing on backed-up energon, the clattering of the covering following her.

A covering? Her orange optics pinned to the wobbling piece of metal before her helm jerked up to the ceiling. A spike of hope jolted through her.

The air ducts!

A screech brought her helm back down to the charging Predaking. Fear suffused in her chassis, and she squeaked almost inaudibly as she threw herself forward, scuttling beneath the great dragon. A stamping foot nearly caught her other wing, and Nightstalker gasped thinly as she scrambled back to her peds. Squatting as if taking off, Nightstalker leaped, hydraulics springing as she launched herself up as high as she could, servos stretching for the small ventilation shaft.

Her hands made purchase, and her body swung slightly as she gritted her dentures and hauled herself up with every ounce of strength left in her body. Fear spurred her forward when she felt the air move when snapping jaws just missed her peds, and flattening her wings, she hurled herself face-first into the tiny vent. She howled in agonizing pain when her broken wing was jarred, and she left silver flecks of paint on the rim of the opening in her haste.

Squeezing through, nearly hyperventilating in claustrophobia because she could barely move, the enraged roar of Predaking rattled the walls around her. His claws jammed into the small vent, and Nightstalker gave another undignified shriek when she felt the tip of that dangerous claw graze her ankle. Wiggling and pulling herself along as quick as possible, she spied two different forks—one heading up, and one heading down, each avenue taking her to different levels of the ship.

She screamed when Predaking's bulk slammed into the ceiling and jarred the ventilation shaft. Squirming along, Nightstalker pulled herself down the lower shaft, and she was lucky she did so. A second later, the entire vent filled with the heat of blazing fire.

The flames jettisoned upwards, but the heat was still unbearable. Nightstalker shrieked, lurching and wriggling through the tight air ducts with more speed, desperate to get away and fans kicking on and trying to expel the heat only to gather more. The fire stopped, and, vents stuttering irregularly, Nightstalker heard the infuriated roar of Predaking echo down the shafts.

She pushed herself onward, dentures gritting tightly and almost biting through her glossia as her bent wing grated against the tight squeeze in the chute. Ratchet. She had to find Ratchet. He could fix her wing. They needed to get out of here. They were going to feed him to Predaking next. Her spark continued that silent chant, desperate to find him:

_Ratchet._

* * *

><p>"Autobot base, do you read? This is Ratchet! Can anyone hear me?"<p>

Relief poured into him when he heard an answer. Dreadwing's deep voice filled the comm. link. "Loud and clear, Ratchet. What is Nightstalker and your status?"

"Listen to me," he cut him off shortly, trying to keep his tones low even with sounds of gunfire in the background. Predaking was doing his damage thoroughly. "Megatron has managed to rebuild the Omega Lock ON BOARD his warship." He cast a glance over his shoulder to the Vehicons he had managed to dispose of. "I've deactivated the Decepticon shielding system. You should be able to get a fix on my coordinates."

Ratchet winced when the sounds of fighting came closer. He needed to move. NOW. Before Predaking had the chance to undo the second chance he gave Ratchet. "Nightfall, you must hurry. Megatron is preparing to Cyberform Earth as we speak!"

"And my sister?" his voice cut in quickly.

"I'll find her!" Ratchet snapped before leaving the consol, taking off down the hall. He could only thank Primus that Predaking had been intrigued enough at his words to listen and hear the truth, as grim as it was since it pained not only one guilty party, but two. He would let the Predacon sniff out Megatron and hopefully put the hurt on him that Ratchet would never be able to.

Instead, Ratchet ran down the halls of the NEMESIS, spark pounding as he postponed confronting Shockwave who was preparing the Omega Lock and instead ran as fast as he could. She had to be in either one of three places: the brig, Megatron's room, or . . . ready to be melted down for spare parts. He hadn't seen nor heard of her save for that brief glance Megatron gave him.

Spark pounding hard, Ratchet dared any Decepticon to get in his way now.

* * *

><p>Nightstalker at least THOUGHT she was going to get to Ratchet ASAP.<p>

Her first problem was her wing. It was KILLING her, and she couldn't move through the vents without scraping it along the sides, so she had to get out of the vents first. But first she had to experience a crippling bout of claustrophobia that kept her silently crying in those vents for Primus knew how long. By the time she had finally gotten a hold of herself, she still had to crawl through the air ducts until she found another ventilation opening, use her lava to cut through the metal, and only then could she slip out as a shivering, sweltering mess in the middle of one of the hallways of the _NEMESIS_.

Then, she had to scramble for cover in the service ducts so no one would see her. She secretly thought Soundwave knew where she was, but that could be because she had a secret paranoia of the mech. Then, before she could get far, she heard, of all bots, PREDAKING on a rampage, and she just scuttled along beneath the catwalks, trying to crawl her way toward the brig since they were probably keeping Ratchet hostage there.

Only, she froze hearing a voice.

"Are you sure confronting the beast-bot directly is the best course of action, Lord Megatron?"

Nightstalker peeked up, and through the gap, she felt her spark leap to her throat seeing Starscream, Megatron, and Knockout's peds. "We shall see how HIS MAJESTY fares against the most powerful weapon in our vault. The Dark Star Saber!"

Nightstalker's jaw slacked as they walked right by. She was NOT getting caught up in this again. Scurrying along, hidden in the service ducts, she winced when she heard a crash and the deafening roar of, "MEGATRON!"

"I'll just go fetch that little something we talked about—" and Knockout had barely finished his sentence before he was fleeing down the halls. Nightstalker narrowed her optics as she watched his peds fly by. Cowardice to the end.

"Is it true that YOU ordered the annihilation of my brethren?"

Nightstalker felt her body freeze mid-motion again. He . . . What? She was suddenly turning back around to peek at this confrontation. The Predacons . . . That was a plant? To lure the Autobots there so THEY would be the ones pinned with blame even though it had been Megatron himself that wanted them dead? Nightstalker felt her spark hit the pits of her stomach.

He orchestrated the loss of his brothers?

"Indeed," she heard Megatron's cruelly sly voice admit freely. "And my only mistake was not seeing the extermination through."

A chill slithered down her back at the grating slide of metal sliding against metal, the clear sound of a blade being drawn. Predaking snarled, and it was almost immediately that Nightstalker heard the fighting erupt, heavy, brutal, a smack down equal to the brutal might of such large and dangerous mechs. Going back the way she had come, Nightstalker peeked up out of the service ducts to see Predaking snatching up a dead Vehicon.

"I will tear you apart!"

Nightstalker winced as Predaking used the dead body as a weapon, literally hitting Megatron so hard that the Vehicon's body snapped into pieces, throwing Megatron down the hall. Predaking rushed him, and Starscream hovered, optics narrowed at the fight.

Nightstalker's optics pinned to Starscream. Her sight flicked back to Predaking who literally had Megatron pinned against a door with nowhere to go. She realized exactly what he was going to do a second after he did it.

"Starscream don't!" Nightstalker rushed out, climbing from the ducts and right into the open as she rushed the mech that lifted his weapon, aimed, and fired the missile directly at Predaking's back. He roared in pain. She flung herself at Starscream, throwing her weight on his arm a second too late, and Starscream snarled, grabbing her and slamming her to the ground. Nightstalker cried out, spasming when her already hurt wing was caught under her body. A sharp ped kicked her gut with grace, and she felt herself sail down the hallway, sent closer to Megatron and Predaking.

"But I was a champion of the pits of Kaon not only due to my savage might . . . but also my CUNNING!"

Nightstalker looked up in time to see the blast doors open up, revealing the second set of doors that led straight outside. Nightstalker's spark hit her peds when Predaking stood back up, disoriented, and without a thought to where her mother's compassion was leading her, she bolted towards Predaking, and yellow optics fixed on her.

"PREDAKING, WATCH OUT!"

The air lock sprang open, and immediately the air pressure dropped and Nightstalker screamed as everything was sucked out of the ship. Predaking roared, grabbing on to the doorjamb as the winds threatened to rip him from the room. Nightstalker felt her body literally lifted, and she sailed towards the exit. Shrieking, her claws found purchase at Predaking's ankle, anchoring her down as the winds gusted.

Energon leaked from him. With a great effort, Nightstalker shifted her grip, grabbing the grooves in the floor where the doors would shut. She gritted her dentures, frail arms struggling to hold herself inside.

"You should have heeded my advice!" Megatron snarled. Nightstalker looked up, fear blanching her face. "And faced me as a BEAST!"

His fusion cannon charged. "Megatron!" The gales all but stole her words away from her. "Don't!"

He almost didn't even register her scream, but his shot blasted Predaking directly in the chassis, sending the mech flying out of the air lock, critically wounded, falling to his death. However, the suction of the wind dragged the warlord forward, and he was forced to brace himself on the doorjamb lest he get sucked out as well. Nightstalker felt her spark shiver when Megatron's optics pinned to her, and she looked back into the ship seeing Starscream standing just at the edge of the hallway.

"Starscream!" She screamed his name, terror eating away the edges of her existence as she hung on the ledge with her greatest oppressor right above her. "Starscream, help me, please! Please! I'm your daughter! I'm your CNA, your energon, please! Help me!"

Megatron gave a cackling laugh dancing on the edge of madness. "Yes, Starscream! Why don't you HELP your daughter? This is your finest ultimatum! Show me where your loyalties truly lie, Starscream! Take the shot you prefer! The back of a tyrant, or the face of a whore!"

She watched his optics shift between the two of them, cold, closed, unnerving in the way she couldn't read his usually erratic emotions. He was calculating, cruel. Fear slithered its way in her spark as she began to lose her grip.

"Starscream!" she screamed at him, tears pricking her optics. He was her father, he was still her father, if only by energon, there had to be SOMETHING—"Help me, please! I KNOW there's something in you that cares! Please! Daddy, please! PLEASE!"

His servo transformed, and fear gripped its slimy claws around her neck, holding her fast when those red optics were focused on her and only her. "Dad! Dad, please!" His weapon leveled itself her way, and panic tore through like a hurricane past the terror. Her voice shrieked, cracking and screaming as tears flew, betrayal whipping through her like a bullet. "Daddy, please! PLEASE! Don't do it, please, PLEASE!"

She saw the flash before it collided with her. The force of the blast sent her little body soaring through the opening of the air lock, and her frame was whipped, tossed and turned by the winds. Her crippled wing was useless. Her optics had shorted out. There was a roaring in her audios, more from the energon rushing than the winds gusting. She was thrown, whirling in a chaotic fall until she slammed against something hard and metal, and the world swam into black.

* * *

><p>Being Prime sucked.<p>

Cliffjumper got to go on the mission to find Nightstalker. Nightfall? Oh no. He had to confront Megatron. He was the Prime, after all. He had to confront the leader, as horribly as that had gone last time. His healed wing twitched with the last residue of nervousness. Things would be different now. He was more mature now, he had more hard battles tucked under his belt.

And, he had his father to back him up.

Trusting the team to do their parts, Nightfall did his part for his oncoming father. Zipping down, Nightfall landed on the first turret, hacking through it with his sword and mangling the thing, stopping one stream of bullets intended for his father. Flipping up and transforming again, he soared to the next, gutting the turret to help his father reach the ship without getting gunned down, and as Dreadwing approached, he felt contact through his spark:

_Megatron._

Nightfall looked up from the ruined gun he stood upon, and his jaw ground as he saw the gleam of the Dark Star Saber above. Transforming his stun guns out, Nightfall unleashed a flurry of bullets to Megatron. The sword slash own, sending a gleaming arc of light bent straight for Dreadwing, but Megatron snarled when Nightfall's bullets numbed his leading arm momentarily. Megatron roared and transformed, taking off into space, and Nightfall sheathed his sword again, taking off and following to the Omega Lock.

Landing on one of the side struts, Nightfall felt a jolt through his peds, and he craned his neck back, watching as the Omega Lock opened up. Drawing his stun gun again, Nightfall scanned the opening and found just who he was looking for—Shockwave.

Open firing on the mech, the scientist had the reflexes to duck and avoid his attack. A warning brush in his spark, and Nightfall turned just in time to see Megatron, teeth bared in the attack and claws spread.

He didn't even have time to swear before Megatron had collided with him, taking him off of the side and down below, almost making them tumble down into space. Grunting and flipping back up to his peds, Nightfall lashed his shield on and turned it on, and he drew his short sword, Megatron already ordering Shockwave to commence the Omega Lock's firing sequence. Earth orbited slowly below, unassuming, the beautiful blue, picturesque backdrop of what they were fighting for.

Nightfall's wings spread and flared aggressively. His lip curled. The personal strife he was fighting for as well.

"Well!" Megatron said with a mad gleam of his optics and a rakish grin of his lips. "I see the pup has come to feed the big, bad wolf!"

Dreadwing's engines as he came screaming in gave him away. Megatron whirled at the last second when Dreadwing fell in with the attack, and Nightfall snarled, launching his assault as well. The two gladiators fought ferociously, Dreadwing with the lethality and grace he was known for, and Megatron with the brutality and power that crumbled worlds. Nightfall zipped between them as the young Prime, floating swiftly between slashes and stinging with a blade not nearly enough to combat the might Megatron wielded.

Megatron's knee, lethal with chevrons, nearly gouged into Nightfall's neck. Luckily, Nightfall's size worked for him and instead of a killing blow, he met with the blunt end of Megatron's knee, chin fitting perfectly between the knife-like chevrons. Nightfall fell back, sprawling, articulators partially shattered as the Omega Lock hummed with power and pooled with Synthetic energon. Dreadwing shouted, breaking past Megatron's defenses next with a hacking slash down at his leading arm. His blade bit into the warlord's outer shoulder, but the hilt of the Dark Star Saber jammed square into his helm.

Nightfall leaped back to his peds when his father staggered in disorientation, but Megatron didn't take the killing blow, knowing the Prime was coming. He whirled back around with a ferocious attack, but Nightfall skidded beneath the attack. Ducking between the warlord's legs, Nightfall slashed at the back of his knee, making a shallow cut in the sensitive area, but not before Megatron's ped kicked him with such force he sailed above his father, crashed into the Omega Lock, and fell back down with a low grunt, coughing on backed-up energon.

Before Megatron could launch his next assault, a harsh jerk of the ship sent them careening off course. Grunting, spitting a glob of energon from his mouth, Nightfall internally thanked whichever Wrecker it was that couldn't steer worth a dime because it had stalled Megatron from making prey of them.

A brief standoff ensued as they reset for the next clash, nursing wounds and energon dripping. Megatron's lip curled at both Dreadwing and Nightfall, twin looks of pure hatred for both father and son painting their faces.

"Where is my sister?" Nightfall shouted at the warlord.

Another laugh spilled from Megatron's mouth, curdling and unpleasant. "Well, wouldn't you like to know, Prime!"

"Tell me!" he snapped, frustrated that Cliffjumper hadn't reported anything and wouldn't until he had found even a LITTLE something pointing to Nightstalker.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find her some day!" Megatron roared, laughing so hard that Nightfall almost took the next strike.

Anger flooded his spark. Energon suffused into his cheeks. His fists clenched on his weapons as he shouted, "Backstabber! You rapist! Cold sparked! Tyrant!" The words came flooding out, the most immediate ones he could think of that could possibly even BEGIN to describe Megatron. "I should have known that you were beyond redemption!"

"There's the Prime in you talking!" Megatron yelled right back at him, but there was a lilt to his tone that was almost PLEASED. "Of course I am beyond redemption! I am a bitter slave, an evil entity that must be wiped from the face of this universe by the sacred follower of Primus!" Nightfall bared his denta at Megatron, intent on meeting him tit for tat. "I have been condemned by your hypocrisy, but that will not stop me! I don't need your forgiveness! I don't want your forgiveness!"

Clarity lanced through Nightfall. "Not mine—OPTIMUS PRIME'S!" Megatron reeled back like he had been slapped, and Nightfall gave one flat, bitter laugh. "But it's too late for that! You festered in your sins and were deceived by your own lust for power and killed the one you cared about most!"

"You know nothing about Optimus Prime!"

"I know he hurt you! But that's no excuse to hurt everyone and everything that touches you!"

"SHUT UP! You know nothing about me!"

It was so CLEAR to him now! It was Nightfall's turn to laugh, a slight touch of hysterics coloring his voice as he realized EXACTLY what it was that made Megatron tick.

"I don't need to!" Nightfall cried out, staring right into the depths of those bloody red optics so volatile with rage. "It's made itself apparent that you're terrified of someone actually caring about you! The same situation keeps happening—when Orion Pax grew close to you, you betrayed him! You had Nightstalker eating from the palm of your hand!" He threw his arms out, voice cracking with angry and overwhelmed passion. "She would have loved you! She thought you loved her! But you had to rape her to prove you didn't need her because you were afraid to actually let someone in! And when I told you how much I looked up to and adored you, you immediately manipulated me and turned me against you!"

Megatron stood, stiff like a board, but shaking so violently Nightfall wasn't sure how he hadn't snapped yet. His red optics spat fire enough to consume worlds and burn Nightfall with just a glance, but Nightfall glared right into the depths of that hellfire he contained, a sneer of contempt and pity stretching across his face.

"Your misery is created by your own hand, Megatron!"

Megatron howled a sound of dripping fury, and in that second Nightfall realized he had probably antagonized the wrong mech. Dreadwing knocked Nightfall out of the way of a blinding flash of dark energies, and Nightfall yelped, scurrying out of the way as Dreadwing covered his aft when Megatron blindly attacked him.

And with this, Nightfall realized that while Megatron was certainly dangerous when he was enraged, he was also BLINDED by his rage. He couldn't see beyond Nightfall. His spark blazed to life as he seized this one opportunity, practically shouting to his father through his spark:

_Dad! OUR LESSON!_

Letting Megatron put him on the run, Nightfall blocked long-suffering blows with his shield, electrical sparks flying up in great clouds and tickling his arm. He warded Megatron off with small swipes and blocked attacks with the flat of his blade, hoping that his blade wouldn't snap beneath the force of the blows or that his shield wouldn't short out. In the meantime, as Nightfall distracted Megatron and fueled his anger even more, Dreadwing moved in for the kill.

He moved with the style of his son. He attacked the weak spots, preying on these as the way to slowly cripple Megatron of more important movements. He sliced hip wires, cut beneath his arm pit, and shredded the soft spot between his thumb and pointer finger. Energon slicked the blade, but Megatron held fast. His hips and knees collapsed beneath his weight, but his rage fueled him. His attacks were taxed by the sensitive cut beneath his lead arm, but he attacked relentlessly, angered and infuriated.

Nightfall nearly lost an arm in the process, but with silent communication through his spark, Nightfall saw the moment his father fell back. Following, Nightfall feinted an attack and darted between the spread legs of the Decepticon warlord, hightailing it straight for Dreadwing as a bomb soared over his head.

A rocking explosion blasted behind him, and the force of it sent Nightfall's little body flying forward, but Dreadwing was there to catch him. It was Megatron that bore the brunt of the bomb, and the warlord roared, wreathed in smoke as he collapsed to the ground, armor cracked and bleeding.

Only faintly aware of the scuffle above, Nightfall hissed, sucking in tight vents as he stalked towards Megatron, Dreadwing shadowing him, but content to let his son deal the coup de grace.

Nightfall twirled his blade once before gripping it tightly, a disoriented Megatron gazing up at him through staticy optics. His cobalt optics glared, colder than ice. "I hope you realize that this is for my sister."

He lifted his sword for the killing blow, to drive it directly through the mech's depraved processor, and the second he was at the peak of his stretch, Megatron's servo flashed out, claws jabbing beneath the plating of his chassis and hooking into his protoform, trying to stretch straight through to his spark. Nightfall screamed, dropping his blade somewhere, and he felt himself lifted and flung. He crashed into the side of the Omega Lock, hissing as he flipped once before coming to a stop.

"The Star Saber!"

Blinking quickly, vents seizing painfully as his chassis expanded and contracted quickly, the pain flooding his spark chamber nearly sending him into a state of shock, Nightfall's optics snapped open as he lifted his helm. His spark then promptly hit his stomach as Megatron knocked Dreadwing's blade to the side and felled his father with a blow before leveling his fusion canon at the one black and yellow bot leaping down with the Star Saber hoisted high.

Nightfall lurched, aware he was screaming the young mech's name as that first blast impacted with a grisly blow. The sacred sword popped from his grip as his servos went slack, and it wasn't just one shot, it was three. Three, deadly accurate shots that collided consecutively into the scout's chassis, demolishing the chassis doors protecting his spark. The metal mangled, scorched with blaster fire, and he lit to flame, falling limply and splashing into the Synthetic Energon powering the Omega Lock. He sank, slowly, seeming to disappear through the substance, and Nightfall felt his tanks flip and his spark break as he turned his face away.

In the middle of the desolation flooding his spark, Nightfall also felt anger. Anger like he hadn't felt since he had learned about Nightstalker's rape. It broke free, raging through him, flooding him with the blindness Dreadwing had always preached against. The black storm rose, and after a moment, Nightfall realized it wasn't him.

It was Dreadwing.

His father's feelings looping back through his spark, Nightfall lifted his helm hearing a roar unlike he had ever heard before. Dreadwing attacked Megatron bare-handed, punching him with so much force he nearly broke the warlord's jaw, claws raking and ripping with such force he drew energon and bloodied his fists with his energon. And as he watched, stunned as his father waylaid into Megatron, for a second Nightfall couldn't understand the incomprehensible irony that out of all the people to snap over Bumblebee's death, it would be Dreadwing when Bumblebee had been the very mech that had killed Skyquake.

Dreadwing's fists impacted with crushing force on Megatron, and Nightfall stared as his father broke the very rule he had preached so much. Nightfall had always noticed the strange dynamic between Bumblebee and Dreadwing. It was quiet. No one talked about it for fear of what it was, and neither Dreadwing nor Bumblebee seemed to want to explore it either. But it was there. That strange hatred Dreadwing held because Bumblebee stole his brother, but also the sheer impressments he held that such a young scout could possibly take down a highly trained gladiator, soldier, a fighter such as Skyquake.

And it wasn't just that twisted respect and hatred. It was the young mech's way that had gotten under his protoform, the one that had initially made him doubt whether he truly was Decepticon or Autobot, and realizing he was as far as he could be from being the former. It was him giving in and knowing he was an Autobot, through and through, even before he had pledged his allegiance to his son, now Prime. It was the scout apologizing for Skyquake's death, wishing it different, even though it made no difference, proving his innocence in a time fully of iniquity.

And it seemed like the ties of family far superseded everything. Though he wasn't Dreadwing's by energon, or even any sort of family ties, he was always claimed as Nightstalker's brother. And because he was Nightstalker's brother, he was Dreadwing's son by association. And while they barely spoke, there was something between them, something beneath the surface that fit the other and held the other in line, and without it, the presence of a spark as innocent and compassionate as Ampere's, Dreadwing snapped.

Somewhere in the mix, the Dark Star Saber had been knocked from Megatron's grip. So when it was suddenly back in his hand, Nightfall couldn't even comprehend the force at which he screamed.

_ NOT ANOTHER. NOT MY FATHER. NO MORE DYING—_

Dreadwing shouted, the force of the Dark Star Saber's power lambasting right into his chassis. Nightfall jerked, hauling butt to his peds, but it was too late to do anything. Dreadwing skidded across the Omega Lock, flipped over the edge, and Nightfall flung himself to the side, screaming and screaming.

Until, a ship, as if out of nowhere, soared right beneath him, and Dreadwing landed safely on top of it, if mangled.

Nightfall's processor stalled on the ship. A ship? What ship was that? He had never seen that spaceship before. Oh wait, he knew that ship. And he KNEW the presence in his spark that, of course, was PANICKING like his brother always was.

_NIGHTFLIER, MEGATRON!_

Gasping in a sharp breath, Nightfall flipped back over, shaking, and his optics widened as he looked up at Megatron looming over him, Dark Star Saber raised for the kill.

"Prepare to join your sister in the All Spark!"

"Megatron!"

Two things happened next: coiling, sickening, terrifying clarity over what happened to his sister; and then, a sword somehow sticking out the back of Megatron's chassis.

In fact, the image was a little surreal. No sword and then suddenly, out of nowhere, a sword just jutting out of the center of his chassis. Of course getting impaled like that caused a spit of energon to spray at Nightfall, and he stared at Megatron, who was just as equally confused as the other.

Glancing over, Nightfall stared at the sight of . . . BUMBLEBEE? Bumblebee was stabbing Megatron with the Star Saber. And his chassis—his chassis was healing, forming over again as if he hadn't ever been shot in the first place. He GLEAMED. He absolutely glowed with a shine as if he had simply come straight out of the Well of All Sparks.

Glimmering blue optics dilated tight, staring directly into the warlord's black spark. "You took my voice. You will never rob ANYONE of ANYTHING ever again!"

And suddenly, Nightfall realized, he wasn't supposed to be Prime. Neither was Smokescreen, for that matter. Megatron gasped thinly, choking on the energon obviously backing up in his systems, and Nightfall just watched, as helpless as when he had first began, as Megatron's life ebbed away. The warlord pitched to his knees at the edge of the Omega Lock, and Nightfall just . . . stared. There he was. A true Prime.

There was a beauty in the way he died. Final and epic. The Decepticon symbol on his chassis, cracked straight down the middle, and the gleam of his spark fading to nothing. He slid backwards, metal scraping against the blade as his fingers clenched even in death against the sword. His optics flickered, flickered, and died.

Nightfall couldn't help but turn and watch as Megatron's body fell backwards, dropping like a comet, like a falling star towards the Earth. And through it all, he felt a warring torrent of relief, satisfaction, and . . . sadness. His wings sagged down as he stared at the remains of the mech who had truly torn down the caste system, uprooted it from Cybertron, and had supplied every means necessary for being able to rebuild Cybertron. And now, he was gone. He would never see Cybertron brought back to life. If anything, Nightfall wished he could give him that.

_So this is how far our heroes fall._

The glow of reentry slowly began to fade. Nightfall still gazed after him, but he finally noted the presence of another next to him. A hand extended towards him, and Nightfall looked up to see Bumblebee had his servo out to him. A bit shell-shocked, Nightfall grabbed it, hissing and wincing when his chassis moved from where Megatron's claws had impaled their mark on him.

They didn't say anything to each other. Nightfall grabbed the Star Saber, and the sword barely budged under his strength. Then, he just left the sword and he and Bumblebee both climbed back up the Omega Lock and inside to where the others were waiting.

Dreadwing communicated with him through his spark, telling him he was okay, only that Ratchet was going to blow a gasket when he realized the amount of patching he was going to require. On the other end, a side he had missed so much over his time as Prime, was First Aid, reporting they were landing on the strip above and promising they'd see him soon.

And though he was scared to his core about Megatron's last words, he knew better than to trust a Decepticon.

They met Ratchet, Smokescreen, and Arcee at the top. Arcee immediately moved to his side, supporting him, and Ratchet stared, almost slack-jawed at Bumblebee as he breathed, "Bumblebee . . . Your voice!"

Bumblebee's brows pinched. "My voice? What are you g—MY VOICE." His big optics swirled wide, and Nightfall blinked as he witnessed the mech's battle mask slide away to reveal a mouth. And here he had thought Bumblebee didn't HAVE a mouth. He hadn't realized he covered up the shame by always wearing the mask.

Bumblebee gave an overwhelmed laugh. "Ratchet, I have my pipes back!" and he dashed forward, seizing the medic with a tight hug.

Ratchet laughed too, this miracle standing out against the apprehension that still covered them. "Yes! Yes, we noticed!"

Bumblebee's optics swirled as he stared at his hands, looking down at his body that was healed beyond what standard equipment or even advanced equipment could have done. "The Cyber matter . . ."

The medic nodded, a soft smile of relief and even happiness showing on his face as another edge of guilt was eaten away from his spark, lightening his load. "Yes. It is the only possible explanation."

Nightfall felt his mouth curl up ruefully into a smile as he watched them. "Looks like the field medic didn't do too bad after all," he said, catching Ratchet's attention. Then, realizing that the rest of the team didn't know what had happened, Nightfall cleared his vocalizer and accessed his comm. link. "Autobots, Megatron's dead." He squeezed his optics shut, realizing how awful that sounded. "He's terminated. He's—no more." There. That sounded diplomatic. "Wreckers? Nice job securing the brig."

"It wasn't us, Sir," he heard Ultra Magnus say back. Nightfall's brows lifted, and he flinched slightly when Arcee put her hand over his wounds, helping stifle the energon leaking. "The credit belongs to the humans."

Nightfall's brows rose again. Well, throw him in a smelting pit and call him hot. Those kiddos were bright little things. He mentally made a note to thank whoever had driven so awfully.

Gently disentangling himself from Arcee, Nightfall murmured under his breath to her that he would be all right and instead looked to Ratchet who was tapping on the controls of the Omega Lock. His optics flared. "The Omega Lock is under our control," Ratchet reported. "I propose that we put it to good use."

"Agreed," Nightfall said. He looked up the ship. "But first, I've got some family to meet. Ultra Magnus, set course for Cybertron. Cliffjumper, rendezvous with us in the bridge." Through his spark, he embraced his brother warmly, missing his presence.

_First Aid, meet us in the bridge._

_ Will do. Drag the 'Con with us?_

Nightfall's mouth twitched as he led the bots back into the _NEMESIS._

_ Come on now, First Aid, don't you recognize him?_

_ Designation Dreadwing, one of Megatron's high ranking air commanders. I presume you wanted this one alive?_

_ More than alive. You better treat him like a king. He's an Autobot now, or don't you see the decal? I'll explain it all later._

_ All right, then. We're taking your word for it._ There was a pause. _You feel . . . different._

Nightfall vented slightly. There was the understatement of the century. But it was true. He wasn't the same mech that had unwittingly found himself on Earth out of sheer circumstance. He was . . . yeah. Different.

_It's a long story, and one I'll tell after we restore Cybertron._

To that, he felt First Aid's shock, but he seemed to take Nightfall's words as they were and his promise to explain everything later.

The walk to the bridge where everyone else was seemed to take longer that it really was. That could be because he was excited to finally see the Protectobots again and hear how the frag THEY got all the way out here. And when he finally stepped foot into the bridge, he found Dreadwing sitting patiently on the ground, a perturbed Blades hovering suspiciously near him as Hot Spot was deep in conversation with Ultra Magnus, trying to get debriefed on the situation. However, the second he walked into the bridge, Nightfall saw all their optics pin on him.

Hot Spot hooted, and he was the first to bolt across the room. "Nightflier! You little fragger! You've been out here playing hero and left us stranded on Cybertron?" Nightfall laughed, wincing a bit as Hot Spot grabbed him up in a bear hug that could have rivaled even Bulkhead's giant hugs. He plopped him back down with a grin and punched his shoulder with a wide grin. "Look at you, trying to grow up without us to keep you in line! I am so disappointed!"

Nightfall smiled, wings perking up. "Yeah? Well, I'll have you know—"

"Hey, lemme have at this kid!" Before Nightfall could continue his sentence, he let out a surprised, mock-choking noise as Streetwise wrapped his arm around his neck in a hug that slung him right into his chassis. "Little Bit-Brain—more like a miss clock! Taking on Megatron? You stupid little turbo fox!" His large knuckles then ground back and forth against Nightfall's helm with a humiliating noogie.

Nightfall shouted, squirming indignantly as he hollered, "Streetwise! Stop it! Let go of me!"

"Ha ha! Not a chance!"

"You shouldn't have let him grab you," Blades huffed as he made his stand-offish ways over closer to the group and First Aid angrily pushed Groove out of his way when he was getting boxed out.

Nightfall finally wriggled out of Streetwise's grip so he could grin at Blades. "Aw, don't sound so happy to see me!" He extended his arms for a hug, and Blades immediately stiffened and narrowed his optics, daring him to get close. Nightfall waggled his fingers. "C'mere, Blades. You know you want it."

"No, I am absolutely sure that I do NOT want any part of—"

"Oh c'mere you hug-deprived soul!"

Nightfall lunged before Blades could stop him, and the helo grumbled audibly in irritation, but Nightfall had locked his arms to his side so he couldn't fight back. His propellers twitched as he snarled, "All right, all right! That's enough! Now let me go before I knock you down!"

"You'll do no such thing," First Aid cut in brusquely, parting them as his optics roved from behind a solid blue visor. His battle mask slid back to reveal a frown as he exclaimed, "Nightflier, you're leaking all over the place! Sit down, I've got to patch you up. Groove, back up, you're crowding us."

Groove managed an indignant wrinkle of his olfactory system, but he wasn't really bothered. In fact, he just drawled, "Stay cool, Aid, I just wanted to say hello to our boy."

"Well, you can say hello when I'm done with him."

Immediately, Hot Spot, Streetwise, and Groove all backed up exaggeratedly, Blades a little more haughtily than the others. "Nightflier," Hot Spot said, "sorry to say, but you're on your own dealing with him."

Nightfall merely laughed again, actually missing his brother's melodramatic worry. He grabbed First Aid's shoulder, telling him, "Calm down, Aid! I'm fine, really."

"Fine?" First Aid ducked his helm, fingers probing at the wounds in his chassis. "Look at these! Any closer and you could have had a nasty case of spark shock, or worse, you could have—"

"First Aid!" Nightfall's exasperated cry was both a plea for mercy as it was laughter, and he brought First Aid up in a tight hug, stopping him from the rest of his diagnostics. "Hello! I've missed you too brother!"

The red and white mech sputtered, and after a moment, finally collapsed and returned Nightfall's hug. "Don't make fun of me," he said. "I was worried!"

Nightfall chuckled, nuzzling their helms briefly before pulling back. "I know. And I'm also telling you to quit your worrying because I'm not dying."

"Hey, wait a second, Bit Brain!"Nightfall yelped when he felt a wing get tugged as he was yanked back to Streetwise. "Look at this fragger! First Aid, if you ain't gonna be happy when you look at this! Check 'em out!"

A surprised squeak fell from his vocalizer before he could stop it when Streetwise grabbed the lateral edge of his wing and flattened it, effectively bending him slightly and sending his latter wing flipping upwards. The awkward motion was clearly a practiced position because of the ease at which Streetwise handled him, but it also put Nightfall in an awkward position that opened up his wings for First Aid's scrutiny.

"Sweet Cybertron—Nightflier, your wing! It—It's healed!" First Aid gaped in shock and wonder, vocalizer shaking. "That's wonderful! Fli-Ni, how in the world . . . ?"

"Long story," he said again, wings twitching as he wiggled against Streetwise. "Now lemme go! Quit manhandling me, Street!"

"Oh, don't lie, you like it!" Hot Spot boomed with a laugh, and the big mech hoisted Nightfall up by the waist, leaving the rest of the Autobots in the room with bemused expressions as the youngest brother of the bunch was picked on by the older. Nightfall flailed for a moment until Hot Spot had flipped him up in his arms like cradling a baby, and he pressed his cheek against Nightfall's. "Now, what was that lullaby you loved so much when you were little?" Before Nightfall could stop it, Hot Spot dropped into perfect Cybertronian-pitched singing. "_Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome! Hold me tender, fly me home—"_

Nightfall flushed brightly, wriggling even more. "Hot Spot!" he hollered, hearing the chuckles in the room at the age-old nursery song. "Quit it! You're embarrassing me on purpose!"

He laughed. "And it's working like a charm!"

Hot Spot allowed Nightfall to squirm out of his grasp, and Nightfall rubbed his aching chassis absently as he narrowed his optics at the Protectobots that seemed to take the greatest pleasure in teasing him. "All right, now that we've properly humiliated Bit Brain, how about you guys tell me how in the world you got all the way out here. Last I heard, you were on Cybertron."

"Hey, let me explain this," Groove drawled, stepping up. "Well, when you disappeared off Cybertron with the rest of these fellas in that ground bridge, we of course had to investigate the area. Found a criminal amount of rubble, no living bots, so we marked the area and retreated back to a small hovel since there was a rust storm brewing." The blue and white mech rocked back on his heels comfortably, resting his servos on his hips. "Well, after waiting out the storm, we had to wait a bit more because lo and behold, we've got 'Cons digging through the wreckage."

Groove suddenly leaned forward, long face scrunching. "And wouldn't you know the mech that decides to show up, Fli-Ni? Of course it's gonna be ol' Cyclops acting like he just lives on Cybertron and jumps ship with the 'Cons wherever they went back to!" Groove threw up his white hands in exasperation, shaking his helm. "Well, after that, you wouldn't believe the hissy fits we Protectobots threw. I was so beside myself I could barely even get a word past my mouth, and you should have seen the way Blades started trashing the joint we were—"

"Groove," Hot Spot suddenly cut in through the slow-speaking bot's digression. "Stay on point or I'll tell all in one sentence."

He held up his servos in surrender. "Chill, Sir! I'm telling it quickly." Fixing his attention back on Nightfall who just rolled his optics, he continued to tell the story that would likely be summarized again with only a few sentences. "Well, since Cyclops left fresh tracks through the settling rust from the storm, we were finally able to easily find one of that mech's hideouts. Unfortunately, almost all we found of any use was a half-busted space bridge that had clearly overloaded by way of overriding the energon containment protocols."

Cliffjumper, on the other side of the room, blinked and glanced at Arcee. "Hey, wait a minute—we did that, didn't we?"

Groove shrugged. "It was a mess, really. Dilapidated; ramshackle at best. We had a helluva time trying to put it back together, but after some tinkering, we finally got her functional again."

"So you space bridged here," Nightfall interrupted, trying to cut through the rest of the story.

Groove waved a hand. "Well, our main problem was getting enough energon to actually manage to power the thing. We ended up depleting our stores just to power it up and took the Baby, y'know, just in case something went wrong and we got sent halfway across the galaxy and needed to get back home . . ."

Nightfall covered his mouth, choking on a laugh. "You guys did not ALL fit in the Baby." After all, it wasn't called the Baby for no reason. It was their only ship, so it naturally gained perks, but it was a two-bot ship.

A slow grin spread across Groove's face. "Blades wasn't happy First Aid had to sit on his lap." The bots shared a laugh at that while Blades grumbled, helicopter propellers twitching in irritation before Groove continued painfully slowly. "Well, the calculation was all my fault; I'll take the blame for that. We space bridged to the coordinates we found logged in the databanks of the space bridge . . ." He slowed down, glancing back over at Cliffjumper. He pointed a finger. "I think that was you again," he drawled. Cliffjumper just shrugged, and Groove returned that shrug, continuing, "Well, the energon calculation was all wrong. I thought we had enough to get us from point A to point B, but we ended up crashing the bridge again somewhere in this solar system, short of this dirty little Earth planet. We landed somewhere outside of Jupiter, so we got the Baby trucking on until we got close enough to Earth to see you guys, we naturally tried to join up in the fight, but well . . . It kinda blows that we missed out on all the fun."

Nightfall arched a brow at Groove. "So you found Shockwave's old, busted space bridge, fixed it, and space bridged here."

The laid-back mech considered this sentence and then nodded. "Well, yeah, I suppose you could put it like that."

Nightfall rolled his optics in exasperation along with Hot Spot, both knowing that Groove's slow-talk would never speed up to the pace at which a normal person would speak, but both respecting the mech for what he was and didn't pressure him to spit it out and instead let him talk since the danger was past. "Well," Nightfall said, shaking his head, "there's a bit too much to tell you guys right now, but, we'll start with the most pressing and important. First, I'd like you all to meet someone."

Walking over, Dreadwing looked up at him, and Nightfall's lips twitched up into a smile. "Guys," he said, extending his servo out to Dreadwing, "I want you to meet my father."

Simultaneously, blue optics widened and visors brightened. Hot Spot recovered quickest, and he gave a broad grin, saying, "That's great, Fli-Ni!" while First Aid just stared from the background, breathing, "Sweet Cybertron, why didn't I see the resemblance . . . ?"

Dreadwing stood shakily, aching from the blow Megatron had inflicted on him. He fixed solid blue optics on First Aid. "You are First Aid?" he asked for confirmation. The red and white mech nodded, put on the spot. Dreadwing then inclined his body in a shallow bow to him, ducking his helm to show humility as he professed, "Then, I must thank you for keeping my son alive when I could not. I am in your debt."

First Aid blushed slightly, stuttering, "W-Well, I would have done the same for anyone else . . ."

"Regardless."

Nightfall's smile faltered. "And . . . other good news . . . the last I knew, my sister was alive."

More stunned gaping. "Your sister?" First Aid cracked out. "But . . . how?"

Nightfall shook his head. "I'll explain later. But . . ." He glanced across the room. "Cliffjumper? Did you . . . ANYTHING?"

The red mechs lips pressed, and he shook his head.

Nightfall vented sharply, scrubbing his face. He couldn't just drop the fate of Cybertron to search for his sister. First thing first, his duty as a Prime called. He glanced over to Ratchet. "Then, I think it's about time we restored Cybertron."

Ratchet frowned then. "Nightfall, I was never able to learn Shockwave's side of the cyber matter equation. The amount loaded into the Omega Lock . . . It may be all we ever have, and Cybertron is a much larger planet than Earth."

Nightfall paused, because even before he could contemplate the answer, he was given the answer, a unanimous answer from the Primes in his spark. He tried not to sarcastically applaud them for agreeing on something for once. "Then, we'll launch it into the Well of All Sparks, directly into Cybertron's core."

Hot Spot's brows shot up. "Into the heart of Primus himself?" he exclaimed, aghast at what Nightfall was suggesting. "Who died and made you Prime?" At the stricken looks that swept around the room and the palpable change in air, Hot Spot blinked, and then the energon leeched from his cheeks. "Oh Primus." He lifted his servo, pressing it to the side of his helm. "Oh Primus. Oh Primus, I am so sorry." His blue optics swept the group again, looking for the only mech that would have been missing from the party and devastated when he couldn't find him. "Oh my Primus . . . Oh Primus . . ."

First Aid's lips trembled in awe. "Nightflier . . . You . . . You're PRIME?"

His wings fluttered nervously as the Protectobots stood shock still at the dump of information. "Yes," he said. "I'm . . . My name is Nightfall Prime. And I'm . . . Prime, since the passing of Optimus Prime."

First Aid's legs wobbled and collapsed, bringing him to his knees as he realized EXACTLY why his brother felt so different on the inside, and Nightfall felt his armor hinge up defensively. "Oh, get up!" he snapped a little peevishly at him. "I'm not something to be worshipped!"

First Aid stuttered as he shakily stood back to his peds. "I—I just . . . NIGHTFLIER . . . Nightfall. Nightfall Prime. Sweet Cybertron . . ."

Nightfall bit his lip. "Ultra Magnus, take us to the Well. Ratchet, come with me."

Ratchet seemed surprised, but he followed obediently. As he passed, Nightfall wrapped First Aid up in another hug, and silently told him through his spark, _Listen to me. Nothing is changed between us when we are alone. I will always be simply little Nightflier when we are alone. Only in public will I ever be your Prime, and even then it is only a rank change. Please, keep our relationship as it is, based on who I am and not the rank I bear._

He let him go then, moving ahead to take Ratchet back to the Omega Lock's controls below. He felt the ship come to a stop before they made it back to the controls, and when they stood before it, Ratchet finally found his glossia.

"Nightfall, if I may ask . . . Why did you bring me here?"

Nightfall released a sighing vent. Turning towards the medic, Nightfall's lips tugged with a melancholy smile. "Have you ever heard the saying, 'dead men tell no tales'?"

Ratchet frowned. "It sounds like a human saying."

"It is," Nightfall said. "And, in regards to us, not entirely true." He put a servo on the edge of the Omega Lock's controls, wings fanning slowly. "I've heard a great deal about you Ratchet, from a mech that may know you better than you know yourself." He heard the medic's vents seize sharply on a silent gasp of air, pained in the memory of it all. "And I have to say, I agree with him as I extend you the last gift Optimus wanted you to have." Nightfall looked up into Ratchet's optics, letting him know from the depths of his soul that he meant his next words with all his spark. "Ratchet, do us the honor of bringing Cybertron back to life."

He watched the conflicting emotions chasing their way back and forth across Ratchet's features. Finally, he settled on a bewildered shock, stammering unconvincingly, "B-But I can't. That honor goes to the Prime. You."

Nightfall shook his head. "Not this time. Ratchet, you've given everything you had in the effort to fight for Cybertron's restoration. All your life. From a young mech just starting out as a field medic to the seasoned veteran you are now. And through all the pitfalls this life had to offer, you provided Optimus the one outlet he had from being Prime. Blood, sweat, energon . . . You shed them all fighting for Cybertron. And now, you are the mech that completed the Synthetic Energon formula that was the last piece of the puzzle to restore Cybertron. Therefore, I can think of no one more worthy to bring Cybertron back to life than you."

He took a step away from the Lock's controls. "Accept Optimus's last gift to you, Ratchet," he said softly, spark swelling with the compassion of the late Prime. "More than anything in the world, this is what he wants for you."

Ratchet's lips trembled for a brief moment before his mouth settled into a line. His impassioned optics settled on the controls to the Omega Lock, and Nightfall comfortably took a back seat as he watched the CMO square his shoulders and set his jaw, optics brimming with emotion as he stood before the great mechanism that would infuse Cybertron with life again. And both mechs, in the quiet, both knew at the same time that some things never truly died, whether they were deity . . . or, merely a mech.

With a last hesitation of his lifted hand, Ratchet's finger pressed the button, and the Omega Lock roared to life with a flash of glorious light that whited-out their optics.

* * *

><p>The beam from the Omega Lock jettisoned out with primal force, powerful, and intense. The energy, fueled by a formula of life both Cybernucleic Acid and Synthetic Energon, shot into the yawning maw of the desolate Well of All Sparks, a beacon of hope and change. Every last drop was spent from the scientifically engineered Omega Lock, a feat only capable thanks to the Decepticons, created to uproot the corruption in the Senate. And the Autobots, the ones to fix the government as just, wielded the mechanism of life, the last Decepticon feat made for creation and not destruction, an ironic but fitting end to their broken way for ushering in change.<p>

The glow started soft. It welled up from the deep channel of the Well, light bouncing up from the depths of the darkness and dancing up the sides until it ricocheted out with glints and gleams. The pure rays didn't stop at the Well. They spread, swelling wider than oceans as the power of creation took hold, breathing new life into Primus's body and the entire planet seemed to shift with the breath of life. The glow grew bright, almost glaring with its brilliance as it extended past the horizon and to the other side, the world a shining beacon through the black of space. The surface was incandescent with the light, a grim backdrop of the cruelties and despair war had wrought while sparkles of light rose up like the souls of the sparks shed, kissing Cybertron's devastated surface with the promise to restore her to her radiant glow not seen since the Golden Age.

The glow of life permeated through every part of Cybertron. It bounced between the crooked, broken buildings. It filtered through shattered windows and glinted off the sharp edges of jagged glass. It sank into the fissures and bleeding cracks of the metal surface, filling Cybertron with its essence. The dazzling gleam was awe-inspiring. The stunning sheen was majestic. The sublime grace was forgiving. The glorious beauty of it rocked the Autobots to their core.

A Prime wept for his brother that never saw the fruits of his labor.

* * *

><p>"Ah, such luster!"<p>

The moment was broken by the ill-placed words. Every optic and eye turned upon the one mech that no one had expected to show his face, and the mech crossed his arms, shrugging.

"What? I'm joining the winning team!"

Before anyone could properly jump on Knockout, Miko had done it for them, the young human using the extra strength of the Apex Armor to knock out Knockout cold.

Ultra Magnus touched his audio, pinging to his Prime, "Nightfall, we have Knockout."

"Keep him there," were the words nearly snarled back. "I need to have some words with him."

"Certainly." He glanced up, hearing a faint roar, and through the front of the ship, saw the distant form of Predaking fly off into the sunrise, the one dark smudge against the beauty of the scene. "The Predacon . . ."

"Let him go," was Nightfall's answer. "He did not fight against us. He is not our enemy."

Ultra Magnus's clawed servo clenched. "Of course."

"And Ultra Magnus?"

"Yes, Sir?"

There was the slightest smile in Nightfall's voice. "When we come back, Ratchet has a gift for you."

His brows puckered. "A gift?"

A muffled laugh. "I think it's about time you were lent a hand."

* * *

><p>Pain . . .<p>

So much pain . . .

She didn't think the Well of All Sparks would have had this much pain. But, perhaps she was in the Pit. The afterlife was a strange place. It swayed. It clutched. It breathed around her with the dying vents of the deceased. It was hot. It was cold. It shook and it stiffened. It was like riding a living being and being dragged to the bottom of an abyss.

Nightstalker's optics fluttered open. A second later, as her systems rebooted, they flickered, cutting on and off before a hazy, static-filled image began to process. Optics recalibrating, the image focused as the gleaming yellow symbol of a Predacon.

Her vents caught up with internal diagnostics. She coughed, hacking up energon and flushing the congealing heat from her burning hot systems, flecks of blue energon flying and staining the chassis in front of her. A servo held her, and the labored breaths she heard gusted across her helm, hot and pained.

Her seizing slowed as her systems registered massive damage to the upper left of her chassis. Blaster fire had rent the metal to glossy shreds that sparked and bled. Her body was still suffering shock as she quaked and nearly hyperventilated, optics flickering in agony.

That hand swung her tiny form up, and just when she thought she was going to be tossed, she was placed between two giant, folded wings. Her servos instinctively clutched his back, and she felt every last muscle beneath her bunch, flex, stretch and pull as he clutched the side of the _NEMESIS_, slowly heaving them both upwards.

His body trembled. That he had taken Megatron's fusion canon point blank and survived to tell the tale was legend in its own right. The two forsaken life forms clung to their tattered lives, one despairing and one simply lost and angered. Blazing yellow optics glowed like supernova suns, impressive with their passions, but deadened in the next instant; he was running from the flash but heading straight inside the blast of a grisly memory that had taken everything important in his life away.

The strength and power left inside his body rippled beneath Nightstalker as his claws gouged into the hull of the ship, anchoring them safely. But he climbed, and he did not have the strength needed. His hand dug into the ship, and he heaved, but his strength failed him, and they fell, hanging with only one hand to anchor them. Nightstalker's spark started, but a glow caught her optics.

She looked up first, and she trembled in awe as Cybertron awoke to a new day, and life infused it from the core out. The land was washed in the light of a new day, and the sunbeams gleamed against the beauty of a renewed Cybertron. Nightstalker's spark moved.

She had never seen Cybertron like this. She had never seen it so . . . beautiful.

Her vocalizer cracked open. "Predaking," she rasped, so hushed she almost didn't hear herself. "Look."

It took an effort. She could feel his shudder before he slowly lifted his helm to the light. And in it, she felt something different move in him as he took in the sunrise of a new day, a new hope, a new beginning as Cybertron's life began again. And though he had not been brought into this life naturally, Nightstalker knew it was hardly the circumstances of your birth that shaped who you were. It was what you did with the gift of life, and she hoped that he understood that as well. She hoped he understood that even if he was not naturally a part of this world, that he was still a part of it regardless.

Softly, she whispered, "You know . . . This could be your home, too."

For a minute, he didn't respond. Then, one of his large, clawed hands came up, and he gently grasped her small form bringing her before his optics.

"Why?"

She could see the confusion in his optics. He didn't understand, and it reminded her of how little life he had actually lived. He was practically a new spark, a child with the processing power of an adult. Her spark swelled, but . . . She wasn't quite sure either. Why could this be his home? It was a home for all Cybertronians.

"Why what?" she asked quietly, wanting to make sure she had the question right before she answered. After all, though he had saved her, he was still dangerous. He was a lethal killing machine. And she knew he did not hold the Autobots in high graces since they had been the ones to kill his brethren. And now, he had been betrayed by the Decepticons, possibly the closest thing he had to a family, and even that was twisted. He had been used, much like Nightstalker had been used, only in different ways.

Nightstalker watched his brows cinch in concentration of his thoughts. A myriad of emotions flickered across his face. "Why . . . did you . . . care?"

He said it as if it was impossible for anyone to care about him. Nightstalker felt her spark seizing. She bit her lip, feeling a suspicious lump in her throat. Hadn't she known that feeling all too well until she came to the Autobots? But no, even at that point in her life, she thought she had Megatron. She thought . . .

Predaking vented in frustration, lips slanting down. His lip curled slightly, showing a bit of his jagged denta. "You tried to help me. Why?"

Nightstalker felt her spark beating an uneven pattern in her chassis. Why, indeed? It had been instinct. Somehow, even though she knew so little about the mech, all she had known was the mad urge to protect the mech, even if it had been with her own life.

All his brothers, taken by the blinding flash of a grenade. A shiver chased its way up Nightstalker's spine. She knew that, too. Only, there were no miracles of joy for Predaking to know that perhaps his brother had miraculously survived the bomb. His brothers were dead. ALL of them.

Nightstalker's wings sagged. She lifted her orange optics to Predaking, looking directly at him as she said the only thing she could.

"Because I know what it's like to lose your family."

Those fathomless yellow optics stared into hers. He scrutinized her, and Nightstalker felt his gaze picking her apart, studying her, trying to learn what it was he couldn't understand. She wanted to put a word on it for him: compassion; empathy. She could. But she knew that he wanted to learn it on his own, and she let him.

"You are not like the others," Predaking finally grumbled. Nightstalker sat patiently in the palm of his hand, legs dangling over the edge at the mech that completely dwarfed her, a mech to which she only stood up to his knee. "Why?"

"Because the Decepticons used me too," she told him, holding her hand fast to her wound so she wouldn't bleed out.

A heavy gust of hot air blasted her front. Predaking's optics surveyed her critically, and he lifted his head, looking back towards the glowing horizon. For a moment, he just gazed beyond the wonders of the unknown, and then, he looked back at her, holding her as gently as if holding a butterfly.

"Will you come with me?"

Nightstalker's optics widened. There was more than just one question laced between those words. He was asking if she had other places she needed to be than with him. He was asking her to take a step into his life, to fill parts of him that had been crushed by others. He was asking her to teach him compassion, like Optimus had taught her compassion. He was asking her to trust him.

He wanted her with him, for whatever reason was his own.

Nightstalker felt her spark beat a little faster. She had to get back to Ratchet. She had been gone for too long. They had to be worried about her. They hadn't had any word from her. She couldn't reach them through her spark, and her systems were malfunctioning so much right now that she couldn't even force her comm. link to open up. She needed medical attention ASAP. She couldn't even fly back because her wing was crippled.

But as she looked into those broken, hating, devastated optics, Nightstalker knew she could only reply one thing.

She nodded.

"Yes."

A guttural grumble rose up out of his chassis. His claw brought her close to his chassis, and Nightstalker curled up, allowing him to pull her in and hide her, carrying her for transport. The sheer power at which the Predacon leapt, opened his wings and glided, and transformed, was astonishing to experience firsthand. Predaking roared, and the primal sound rocked around Nightstalker as he carried her off into the unknown, straight into the light of the morning sun.

What this next chapter of her life held, Nightstalker didn't know.

But for once, she stood on her own. She had cheated death twice this day. She had overcome things on her own. She had grown more when she was forced to rely on herself than she ever had falling back into the safety of the Autobots. Now, wounded and relying upon a beast who was just learning of his intelligence, Nightstalker was treading in the deep waters of the unknown.

She hoped Nightflier could forgive her for her chosen path. She hoped Cliffjumper would understand. She hoped Ratchet would also. She wasn't going to be gone forever. But somewhere, deep in her spark, she knew this was where she was needed. This was what she had to do. This was where she needed to go.

She prayed that she would know what to do when the time came. She wasn't certain, but she had a role model that had taught her so much. And if it was compassion that reached Nightstalker, it was compassion that would reach Predaking. No, it was more than just compassion. Optimus had shown her love. All the Autobots had shown her love. They had accepted her, regardless of the things she had done. And while accepting love had been hard for her, it was so very nourishing.

And now, Nightstalker had the chance to give that love back to someone else.


	70. Saint

**Author's Note:**

**I just want to say I am SO SORRY this chapter has taken so long. (And, it's pretty short and lack-luster in my eyes, the only thing that saved it was Nightfall. Maybe a bit of Ratchet and Dreadwing too.) Regardless. I've been distracted by a BOY. :O Yep. I've been hit hard and am helplessly infatuated for the first time, so I apologize for being so distracted and taking almost two months to update this! :) You're lovely watchers, and thank you for being so patient with me!**

**Also, much love to my friend LadySuzaku for helping me with the song because I suck at poetry. XD**

* * *

><p>"WHERE IS SHE?"<p>

He hadn't know he had such anger locked inside him. But now, with his claws sunk into Knockout's chassis, he found it. As Blades cackled in the background, RIGHTEOUS anger.

Knockout quailed. "I-I don't know!" he stuttered again, suddenly realizing he had stayed behind in what was turning out to be a den of enemies. "I—"

Nightfall shook him, his rage giving him the strength he needed to sling the mech that was bigger than him. "I know you're connected to her spark, no matter how little!" Nightfall snapped, almost spitting with anger. "Now tell me what happened to her!"

His wild optics shrank beneath Nightfall's glare. "She's alive! Primus, I swear she's alive! Just—"

Nightfall shoved forward with all of his might, and he slammed Knockout against the consol of the bridge of the _NEMESIS_. Icy cold optics bored into him, promising violence. "If you don't start speaking up with something useful soon—"

"I don't know!" Knockout pleaded again. He held up his servos in surrender. "She won't let me in! She won't answer!"

"Try HARDER," Nightfall growled, nearing the end of his patience.

"I am!" Knockout repeated, and he witnessed the mech's sight drop as he said helplessly, "I'm trying, but she won't let me in! She—She won't let me in . . ."

There was a pause of silence filled with Knockout's thin, panicked vents and Nightfall's ragged cycles. For one long moment, there was nothing said as Nightfall let Knockout have the chance to truly reach out to Nightstalker. He shook his head, optics dilating as he rasped, "She . . . She really won't let me in . . ."

The disbelief in his voice was pitiful, but it failed to move Nightfall's spark. With a sharp swear, Nightfall drew a fist back and let it fly with all the strength he had.

His knuckles collided with Knockout's jaw, splitting the mech's lip plating and sending him crashing in an unconscious heap in the floor. Taking a strained vent, Nightfall pointed a finger to Knockout when he began to stir with a groggy moan.

"Ultra Magnus, take him to the brig and don't let him out until he proves his use. Wreckers, Blades, scour the ship. If you find any straggling Decepticons, take them captive. Keep the ones who surrender freely separate from those still defiant. I'll show more mercy to the repentant."

Ultra Magnus reached down, hoisting the disoriented red medic to his peds. "Yes, Sir. Wreckers, Blades, move out."

They dispersed out the doors of the bridge of the NEMESIS, each dividing up as they gleefully began the hunt for surviving Vehicons, Starscream, and Shockwave. Nightfall already believed he had missed one of the lesser lieutenants because one of the escape pods had been activated. It irked him that they would have to hunt down the stragglers because it would impede on the peace if loose ends weren't accounted for.

Rubbing a palm against his helm, Nightfall looked up at the remaining bots in the room. His optics flickered. "Ratchet. You said the last you saw her was in the brig?"

The medic nodded. "Yes, Sir."

Nightfall jerked his head. "Then we'll start there."

Arcee moved to the nearest consol. "It'd be quickest just to check the security cameras. She could be anywhere at this point." Nightfall moved behind her, hovering with his wings perked stiffly in worry. The entire bridge was pretty quiet, First Aid and Ratchet moving around as they patched up those with wounds, each muttering under their breaths about how it really needed to be Nightfall receiving aid.

The empty brigs flickered up on the screens as Arcee navigated the computer. Nightfall's chassis puffed up with a tight breath. She clicked through each of the numerous cells, but the one she rested on was one with only a pair of handcuffs and wing cuffs laying on the floor.

Nightfall felt the pulse in his neck throb. "So where is she?"

"Cycle it back a few hours," Ratchet called from where he was patching up Dreadwing, pulling off glass that wouldn't be able to be salvaged and welding the cracks lining his chassis.

Arcee was doing as told even before Nightfall could order her to do so. He stiffened as he eventually saw the mech with her.

"MEGATRON?"

Arcee jumped, playing it back, but Nightfall snarled, "No! Rewind it back! All the way!" Tensely, they waited as Arcee pulled it back until Megatron wasn't in the room, and Nightfall's wings twitched as he realized Cliffjumper had migrated across the room to stare fearfully into the screen.

"Audio," Nightfall ordered crisply when he saw Megatron enter the room, saying something, servos spread. For a split second, Arcee fumbled with the Decepticon tech before the speakers began to pour out, " . . . idiot did to you. I told him to keep you here so I could find you, not tie you up like you're a prisoner. You are one of us, and you are always welcome here."

"Liar," he heard Cliffjumper hiss beside him, and Nightfall stood impassively, crossing his arms and struggling to keep his panic in check as he watched the confrontation unfold. He could feel the optics behind him, all pinned to the computer screen, and he almost wished he hadn't done this so publicly.

"I need everyone but Ratchet, Dreadwing, and Cliffjumper to leave."

Arcee whirled with wide optics, stunned at the order, and while there was a general murmur through the room as they cleared out per the Prime's orders.

_Even me?_

Nightfall felt his spark clench. His wings fanned.

_Yeah. You too, Aid._

And by Primus alive, while they cleared out, Megatron's WORDS. Nightfall felt sick to his stomach hearing that silver tongue weaving a web of lies and deception that embodied the very essence of the Decepticons.

"Ah. You're still angry with me over that last accident."

"FRAGGER!" Nightfall jumped, not having expected the outburst from Cliffjumper, and he glanced away from the screen, watching the anger rise in the red mech's expression. At this rate, his face would be flushed redder than his paint job. "Lying, disgusting fragger . . ."

Nightfall wasn't sure whose ire was worse—but both Ratchet and Dreadwing lingered behind them, fuming with rage internally with a might that could smother even Nightfall's anger.

It was depraved the kind of things he said. How he so carefully placed each word to make Nightstalker doubt herself. Nightfall's wings fluttered, terrified of where this confrontation was leading. He prayed she would resist. She knew better, he KNEW that she knew better . . .

It wasn't until Megatron told her he wasn't lying and kissed the back of her hand that Cliffjumper swore violently, absolutely shaking with anger. "Don't you touch her!" he hissed at the screen, as if it would make a difference. Megatron flicked away one of Nightstalker's scared tears, prompting another furious, "Don't you TOUCH her!"

"What do I have to do to get you to understand, Nights?"

His thumb stroked across her bottom lip. Ice chilled Nightfall's gut. Even Cliffjumper seemed momentarily wiped of words until he choked out a raspy plea. "Oh Primus no . . . Please no, Nights . . ."

"Please, Nights . . . Just one little kiss . . . Let me show you how much I want you back . . ."

He kissed her. Nightfall felt his tanks roll sickeningly, and Cliffjumper swore, turning and walking away, shaking with passion and fury and betrayal. When his knees wobbled, Nightfall had to lock them as he kept his optics glued on the revolting sight before him. She wouldn't. Primus, she couldn't fall for that again, she was smarter than that . . . He felt Dreadwing's servos lay themselves on his shoulders.

He almost didn't even notice Nightstalker beginning to hit him. For a minute, he just stared blankly as she began to thrash, and Ratchet straightened next to him. "Cliffjumper!" the medic snapped at the red mech. Cliffjumper raced back, all the way up until he was leaning on the consol, blue optics wide.

It took her a minute to detangle herself from him, but when she did, it was a glorious moment. "Let me GO! You don't care about me! You never have! You just used me! All the time!"

Nightfall's wings perked up. By Primus, Nightstalker! Elation slowly began to bloom inside of Nightfall's chassis. She was . . . He knew it! Sagging back in relief to his father, Nightfall felt the pride swell in his spark as Nightstalker laid into Megatron with enough fervor to make even Optimus impressed. She was free from him now, wasn't she? She had broken the chains that held her to him. Beside him, he could FEEL Ratchet's chassis puffing up.

Then, Cliffjumper's wide optics, falling in love with her all over again when she showed her true colors, blinked as she came to the end of her tirade. "She kissed Optimus?"

As if in echo of his words, Megatron growled at her, "He KISSED you?"

Nightstalker's lip curled. "And kissed me better than you ever did."

Cliffjumper gave one laugh before the moment was shattered. He grabbed her throat, and every mech watching stiffened. Nightfall's vents thinned as Megatron's rage unleashed itself, and he shook his sister with such force that her legs swung, like a tiny rag doll.

"You worthless little whore! Throwing yourself around like a little play thing for everyone to frag as they please! Well tell me, did Optimus frag you good? DID HE?"

Cliffjumper shook his head, swallowing. "Optimus would never." He glance over in worry at the rest of them. "Would he?"

"Nothing happened," Ratchet replied in a clipped tone, squashing the doubts before they started.

Nightfall winced when Nightstalker was thrown across the room. Megatron's voice was so loud it shook the speakers. Then, he grabbed her face, and he dragged her from the brig.

Nightfall jolted. "Where are they going?" But he had already jumped to the consol, hurriedly flipping through different cameras to see where Megatron was taking her. His spark shivered in its casing at the way she screamed, the way she thrashed. Finally, it was Ratchet's voice that cracked out the answer.

"Nightfall, don't waste your time. Cut to the upper deck."

Nightfall's fingers froze. After a moment, he did as instructed, energon tanks clenching as they immediately saw the lounging, dozing form of the Predacon. It took a minute or so of tense waiting for Megatron to drag her to the deck. Cliffjumper was audibly praying, and Nightfall felt Dreadwing's servos squeeze his shoulders in a sort of wordless reassurance.

The doors whizzed open.

"This one has outlived her use. She's not much, but perhaps she'll be a tasty SNACK!"

Cliffjumper's voice broke. "Please no."

It was almost surreal, like watching TV while internally believing it hadn't actually happened. But the screams, her screams were so real, and they ripped across Nightfall's consciousness. Even to this point in his life, he STILL couldn't protect her . . .

Cliffjumper frowned suddenly when Nightstalker jumped for the ceiling. "What is she—"

"The air ducts!" Ratchet exclaimed without warning, pointing to where she was squeezing her tiny body into. "Bless you, Nights! Such a smart girl!"

As she disappeared into the air duct, Predaking battered at the ceiling and breathed his fire, but then it suddenly occurred to Nightfall.

"Now where is she?"

There was a pause. Then, Nightfall vented sharply and began the hunt again. This time, it was longer. He didn't know where she had come out, and even when he determined where she escaped the air ducts, she ducked beneath the walkways and was almost impossible to keep up with. And then, out of all the confrontations she could stick her nose in, it would be the one between Predaking and Megatron.

Dreadwing suddenly pointed his finger. "Nightfall. There."

Zeroing in on the camera, Nightfall opened it up, optics whirring wide as he saw Nightstalker rush Starscream, trying to throw the course of his missile away from its target.

His throat tightened. "What in the ever-loving slot does she think she's doing?" he rasped.

Dreadwing's servos tightened. "She's . . . defending him. Predaking."

Dread filled Nightfall's spark. The air lock sprang open; Predaking was shot out, point blank by Megatron's fusion cannon. And then, Megatron's back was presented to Starscream.

"Yes, Starscream! Why don't you HELP your daughter? This is your finest ultimatum! Show me where your loyalties truly lie, Starscream! Take the shot you prefer! The back of a tyrant, or the face of a whore!"

The stress was killing him. Knees knocking, Nightfall collapsed back into his father, rasping, "I'm going to be sick . . ."

Dreadwing didn't respond. The elder seeker was frozen at the sight of the screen, hate brewing up like a violent storm inside as he watched Nightstalker, the spitting image of her mother, screaming and pleading for help, only to get shot directly, blasted out of the airlock as Starscream chose his side.

If it wasn't for how tightly Dreadwing was gripping his shoulders, Nightfall would have sank in a broken heap on the floor. His lips trembled as he rasped, "Knockout said she was alive. She's alive. Wherever she is, she's alive . . ."

The feed played, but no one was paying any attention to it anymore. Finally, Ratchet broke the silence.

"I'll leave Megatron to you," he rasped. "Starscream's mine."

"Get in line!" Dreadwing snapped. "You can have a piece of him, but I'll be the one to crush his deceitful little spark."

Cliffjumper scoffed. "Fine. But I want a piece too since I didn't get the chance with Megatron."

"Bumblebee hogged him," Nightfall muttered. "There's gotta be a piece for me. I call his wings."

The red minibot snorted. "Fine. Then I get those stupid stilettos of his."

"His arms and glossia," Ratchet said, cracking his knuckles as his optics sparked in anger. "That way his weapons can't hurt anyone anymore, and I'll finally silence his lies once and for all."

Dreadwing flexed a hand, claws already envisioning taking apart the rest of the seeker. Nightfall's wings fluttered. Finally, the Prime muttered,

"So where is she?"

The mechs glanced at each other. "We'll have to have Agent Fowler check his sources," Ratchet finally said. "If Nightstalker fell from the _NEMESIS,_ she's probably grounded somewhere. Hurt. He can help us find her."

It took Nightfall a second to get his bearings back. He was still reeling with what Nightstalker had gone through. What she had fought through. What COURAGE she had possessed. He hadn't known she had it in her. He had never seen her so fierce, so defiant, and to MEGATRON of all mechs, the very one that had terrified her most. And, if for a brief moment, she had looked him in his optics, fearless.

The rest of the day was . . . long. Tedious. Nightfall had to go back down to the Omega Lock and fetch his weapons and the Star Saber. Actually, Dreadwing fetched the Star Saber. If Nightfall was truthful with himself, he knew he couldn't really pick it up. They cleaned up bodies. They put the rest of the Decepticons in the brig until Nightfall would be ready to deal with them. They landed the _NEMESIS_ on Cybertron's surface near Kaon to search for a place to be able to hole up and begin rebuilding.

Wheeljack found the high grade. The day did call for celebration, after all. Didn't it? Nightfall allowed it. After all, Megatron was dead, the war was over, and he was reunited with his brothers-in-arms. The Protectobots relished in his company again, and they let him tell his story, alternately laughing at his talks with his human friends or grimly listening to what happened to him, his sister, and the struggles they had gone through. First Aid cuddled with him and held his hand all night long. Nightfall was careful not to drink too much, knowing he couldn't hold his weight in high grade, and instead watched as the rest of them enjoyed the drink and atmosphere. Even Bumblebee finally got his first taste of high grade. A warrior. They would have his ceremony in a few days.

It was when Nightfall didn't see Dreadwing anywhere that he excused himself. He combed the area and the ship for him, but didn't see him. He passed Ratchet on the way who had a cube of high grade for himself, sitting by himself, alone in a random room in the _NEMESIS_. It was merely a stroke of luck Nightfall found him. He settled by the distraught medic for a time, waiting, listening. Ratchet spoke a little, but it was basically what they already knew. He waited more. That the medic was pushed to drink bothered Nightfall. Ratchet never drank. Said it messed with his system and made his hands shake. Nightfall fanned his wings slowly, glancing over at the medic again.

His optics shuttered in the dark room, a dim blue lighting the area. His cube was empty now, and Nightfall felt bad he didn't have one for him. He needed another. Or, at least, he wanted another. His knees were hitched up, and his elbows rested on them. His servos shook, and finally, he buried his face in his palms.

"Nightfall . . . I've lost too much in this war. I've sacrificed too much, given too much, seen too many die . . . And now I'm losing those I care about most."

His vents seized on a breath. A shudder passed through his systems. Nightfall closed his optics, unable to see the medic's raw passion, but he heard it. His plating rattled softly when he trembled so hard. His in takes were staggered. Tears thickened his voice, and despair made his vocalizer crack.

"And now . . . If I lose Nightstalker on top of Optimus . . ."

Thin, terrified sobs caught. Nightfall opened his optics, and his spark hurt seeing the tears trickling from between his fingers. He reached over and grasped his shoulder, and he opened his mouth to say something, but nothing but a crack materialized. What could he say? The same fears plagued him. Nightfall sucked in an airy vent.

"Ratchet . . ." His throat shifted, and his fingers tightened on the grieving medic. He forced the words to squeeze out of his tight throat, saying some of the hardest things he ever had to say. "She's going to be okay. Th-This is my sister. She's tough."

"She's frail," Ratchet rasped back without looking up at him. "I've put her together myself, Nightfall. She needs protection."

Nightfall's wings fluttered. For a second, his lips trembled without words. "So she's small. Some pretty big things come in small packages. I mean . . . Primus made me Prime. And I'm frail." He took a breath, neck cables tightening. "Bots can't be judged on size alone."

Ratchet winced, his words reminiscent of the Prime that came before. He didn't answer this time, and Nightfall shook his head. "S-She'll be all right, Ratchet." He swallowed. "We've been in worse jams than this. We'll find her. I know we will."

Ratchet's body language caved in on itself even more, twisting into himself. "Please." His voice rasped, a trembling breath. "Leave me."

Slowly, Nightfall got to his peds. But he looked down on Ratchet, seeing his sister's father broken and grieving. With a soft vent, he bent down, put a small kiss on the side of his helm, and he squeezed the back of his neck comfortingly before making himself scarce.

He stood outside the door for an uncertain minute. Then, with a troubled sigh, he headed back down the halls of the _NEMESIS_. His peds clicked a steady, lonely sound that echoed down the halls. Eventually he made it to the lower decks without getting lost. Typing in the pass code on one of the brigs, the door whizzed open.

The soldiers were edgy even in their sleep. Visors looked up, red lighting up in numerous places. A pair of optics flicked on, and they met Nightfall's.

The Prime pressed a hand against the doorjamb. "My sister . . . She's still alive?"

Knockout blinked back at him. Despite what they had done to him, he obviously saw something in his optics that tempered any aggression. He nodded. "Yeah. She's alive."

Nightfall felt his shoulders sink in relief. "Thank you."

He turned, letting the door lock behind him again. Rubbing his face, feeling a bit haggard with years beyond his age, Nightfall reached out with his spark.

_Dad? Where are you?_

_ Outside. At the top of the nearest, tallest building._

Nightfall followed his instructions, and he left the ship to find his father. Transforming, he flew to the heights of the obvious building, and he found Dreadwing sitting on the edge, legs dangling as he looked up into the night sky.

Nightfall sat down next to him. Leaning back as his father did, he felt his spark dip again at the sight of the moon large in the sky.

"You're looking at Mom again, aren't you?"

A deep-set rumble of agreement met him. "You don't know how many times I've wished to change the past."

Nightfall looked sideways at his father. Then, he crawled over, climbing into his lap, and he immediately picked him up, letting him cuddle at his chassis. Resting his helm on Dreadwing's chassis, Nightfall looked back up at the moon. "What do you miss most about her?"

A melancholy laugh rose up from the great mech. "Everything," he replied softly.

Nightfall's cheek twitched with a failed attempt at a smile. "That doesn't answer the question, Dad."

"On the contrary," he murmured, "that answered the question perfectly." There was a pause. Dreadwing sighed, and his arms tightened around Nightfall. "I miss her smile, first and foremost. I miss the way she could lift my spirits with just a touch on the cheek. The way I would slide my fingers on the underside of her wings, just to feel her shiver. The way she would laugh and never be able to stop. Her fidgeting. The way she kicked me in her recharge. Pressing her servo against mine."

He took a deep breath, and his helm dipped, wings sagging. "Watching her try to dance. Listening to her lull you back to recharge. Simply looking at the curve of her body as she bent over to kiss your sleeping cheek. Our quiet time. Invading her space. Even when she frustrated me to the point of wanting to shake her. I miss everything."

Nightfall sighed. He leaned against his father, and his wings dipped down. "Yeah?" He vented slowly, feeling every last pain from the previous battle pulse. "I miss her picking me up. And playing with her. She always made me laugh. Always made me happy. I miss hearing her sing." Closing his optics against the tears, Nightfall curled up closer. "I miss her a lot, Dad."

They sat in silence for some time, and Nightfall felt himself rocked slightly when Dreadwing shifted positions slightly, sitting up more. Then, quietly, he heard his father's voice begin singing.

_"Nickle, iron, cobalt, chrome . . . hold me tender, fly me home . . ."_

Nightfall's wings twitched. His throat thickened. "Oh Primus, Dad, don't do that."

His servo rubbed his shoulder, but he didn't stop. _"Nickle, iron, cobalt, chrome . . . Watch me part and see me roam . . ."_

He squeezed his optics shut. "Dad, don't do that . . . please, you don't have to . . ."

A slight laugh caught in his father's chassis, and Nightfall felt him nuzzle the side of his helm. _"Where I got from here, I cannot say . . . But I shall return home some day . . . Though vorns will pass and time shall fly . . . I shall never say goodbye." _The vibrations of his father's deep timbre tickled through his body, and Nightfall felt his spark bursting with wistful love bathed under the pale moonlight. _"Wander far though I may . . . Hold me close again one day."_ He cradled Nightfall close to his chassis, rocking him softly, as if he was a sparkling again. Tiny tears trickled down Nightfall's face.

_"Nickle, iron, cobalt, chrome . . . Hold me tender, fly me home . . . Nickle, iron, cobalt, chrome . . . Embrace me here, carry me home."_

* * *

><p>Predaking seemed to fly forever.<p>

He didn't seem to stop for anything that day, flying far and wide as he restlessly covered ground. Nightstalker couldn't tell whether he was curious or not, or if he was just lost. He zigzagged. He soared up high. He floated and glided. They steadily dripped energon, and it finally took Nightstalker being so close to passing out that she had to get Predaking to land.

He roughly bent her wing back so it was close to straight again. It had been painful, and she had screamed so loudly her voice had echoed across the empty planet. He gave her a minute to recover, and when she did, she took out the last of her field kit, sighing at the lack of proper tools left, but made do with what she could. At least, she was able to stop the bulk of his bleeding, and he oddly returned the favor.

Then, because the sun was setting and the night was chilling, they settled to sleep. At first, separate. But the night was cold, and Nightstalker's systems could feel the toll. Her little body convulsed a little against the chill, systems dipping, so she scooted closer to Predaking. He exuded heat. And because of that, she scooted closer. And closer. Until she was just shy of his helm. One optic opened lazily, yellow and huge, and there was a puff of hot air and thin streams of smoke. Teeth picked her up by her good wing, slung her in and plopped her near his belly. He then opened up a wing, shielding her from the cold winds and curling up again, tail and head nearly touching as Nightstalker curled up into him for warmth.

He woke her the next morning, picked her up again, and began flying. She wanted to ask where he was going, but she honestly didn't think he knew where he was going. The second night was . . . a lot more eventful than the first.

Nightstalker cried out in her sleep. She perspired, shaking and panting. And then, she arched, whimpering. She didn't hear the transformation around her, deep in sleep. She cried out again. Her fingers clawed the ground.

"Cliff!"

The great mech grumbled, shaking her awake. For a minute, the touch only excited her more, and then, her optics snapped open to reveal a very confused mech.

Predaking frowned. "Are you all right? You are emitting . . . mating pheromones."

For one horrible moment, Nightstalker contemplated, and then, she pushed him away, gasping as the heat scorched through her body. She ducked behind the first building she found, shaking with the urge for overload that had so been teased at in her dream. She dropped her face in her hands, spark clenching and full of static, so desperate for Cliffjumper that she couldn't see straight. When was the last time she had overloaded? Too long, too long, she had never needed him like she did now, at the brink of an overload.

Did she dare torque herself off? That wouldn't be considered cheating, would it?

She heard his heavy steps bring him close. "Are you—"

"Leave me alone!" she managed to say, voice cracking a little. "I need my privacy!"

She heard a perturbed sound from the mech before his steps receded back. Shivering and biting her lip, Nightstalker opened up her spark chamber, so desperate for the overload that she was shaking.

She barely had to do anything to reach her climax. She went over almost too easily, crying out his name and momentarily regretting going with Predaking.

Then, overload satiated, she had to go out and face Predaking. Which was mortifying because she knew a mech of his kind of hearing would have heard her REGARDLESS of if she screamed or not. After hesitating one last time, she sucked it up and went out to him. Predaking looked up when she came into sight, and he stood, a frown of confusion on his face.

"I . . . thought . . . Cliff is a name, not a landscape. You have a mate."

Nightstalker blushed at the very thought. Heaving a deep vent, Nightstalker flushed out all the hot air and managed a tight, "Yes. He's my mate. So . . . Yeah."

What was she supposed to say to that? Predaking looked down, DOWN on her, towering above like a colossal giant. The great mech's optics narrowed in thought, and finally, he said, "You should not have come. You desire your mate."

"You asked me to come," Nightstalker reminded him. She rolled her sore shoulder, trying not to wince at the combination of relief and pain it gave her. She could only comfort herself that it had been Starscream, not Megatron that had shot her. If she had taken Megatron's fusion canon like Predaking had . . . she shuddered. She most definitely wouldn't be living. The shot would have torn right through her.

An ominous growl rumbled out of his chassis. "And against your better judgment, you came."

Nightstalker frowned at the sudden aloof nature he showed her. "And why wouldn't I?" she asked. "You asked, so there must have been a reason."

She watched his lip curl slightly. He abruptly turned away, a gust of hot air hitting her as he vented sharply. "Whatever reason it was, it does not exist anymore. Leave me. I no longer desire your company."

Her brows shot up. That was it? "Hey, wait!" She trotted after his longer strides, and she pulled on his leg when he refused to stop. "Is this about Cliffjumper? You brought me here because you thought I . . . You thought that I cared about you like THAT?"

"No!" He whirled, shaking her off his leg, and Nightstalker frowned sharply, yanking her hands back from his slightly kicking ped. He leered down at her with anger smoldering in the depths of his optics. "How could YOU care about me? I know what I am. And I know what you are, AUTOBOT."

Nightstalker's jaw popped open. "You can't be serious." But he was already walking away again, apparently finished with her, and Nightstalker ran after him to catch up. "Predaking! Predaking, stop! Can you really hold an entire faction accountable for what only a few of us did? It wasn't all that long ago I was a Decepticon!"

He whirled on her so suddenly she almost ran smack into his leg. She quailed at the rage that bubbled up. "Decepticon?" he all but hissed at her.

Her spark skipped. Wrong thing to say. "I left the Decepticons because I was being used," she blurted out quickly, hoping he might sympathize with that. "The Autobots took me in and . . ." She quickly decided not to elaborate on her reception. "And I guess you could call me one of them since I'm wearing the emblem, but I'm hardly Autobot or Decepticon."

His lip curled again. "You merely seek to avoid my rage," he growled lowly.

Nightstalker shrank, backing up some. "Well, if I can avoid being lunch, then yes," she nearly stuttered out, wings fluttering rapidly as the fear began to bubble up again. "You asked me to come with you, though. You know I care, so why are you being an aft all of the sudden?"

Predaking's servos clenched, and she instinctively took another step away at the small show of aggression. "My reasons are my own," he snarled back. "You are an Autobot. I will never forgive your kind for killing my brethren, and I will never forgive the Decepticons for their active deception. Show your face to me again, and I will kill you."

Her optics popped in shock at the way he suddenly pushed her away, and then, his transformation unfolded, and the dragon's wingspan spread wide, nearly knocking her over. Nightstalker yelped when he took off, leaving her behind.

"Hey!" She ran after him, anger flushing her cheeks. "You can't just leave me here! You're avoiding the question!" Jumping and attempting her own transformation to catch him, she spasmed and hissed when her wing refused to snap into place, still crooked from where Predaking had damaged it on the NEMESIS. Huffing in irritation, she glared at the dragon flying away. She shook a fist at him.

"Fine! Go then! Stupid dragon! I bet you broke your welds open again and are just going to leak to death!" Of course, she didn't get an answer, and when she didn't, she huffed and crossed her arms. "Stupid dragon. Last time I'm sticking my neck out for you, you stubborn, grudge-holding mud-slogger . . ."

Her wings fluttered again in her agitation. Fine. If he wanted to go, she'd let him go. She belonged with the Autobots anyways. Back home.

Her chassis warmed at the thought of home. Then it dropped. Where WAS home? She looked across the barren landscape of Cybertron, the wind howling ominously through the creaking buildings. Great. Now she was all alone, it was the middle of the night, and her heater had left. She narrowed her optics. Fine. She'd insulate herself for the night, and the next morning, she'd be on her way back to the Autobots.

Where WERE the Autobots? Hopefully she'd be able to see the NEMESIS in the sky if she got close enough . . . Or maybe they would land it to save energon. Yeah. That sounded more like the Autobot thing to do. They were masters of preserving energon by now.

But where would they go? Presumably they'd go to Iacon . . . Nightstalker bit her lip as she looked around. She didn't even know where she was! By how run-down it looked and the markings, it had to be Decepticon territory. Vos? Tarn? She swore slightly under her breath. She'd been cooped up on that fragging NEMESIS all her life! She'd barely gotten out, and because of that, she didn't know any territory outside of Kaon. Regardless, Iacon was north. All the Autobot territories had been north. She'd start there.

After standing for a minute, letting her anger cool off, Nightstalker felt her irritation fizzle out, and instead, her spark dropped. Grudge-holding. She looked back to the sky. She really couldn't blame him for holding a grudge, could she? She shook her head, and to enforce her thought, she consciously said it out loud.

"You owe him nothing, Nightstalker."

Of course she didn't, but she hadn't owed him anything when she tried to stop Starscream from shooting him. In fact, she should have left him to his fate instead of trying to help him. Nightstalker gritted a frustrated sound through her teeth, and she reached up, letting her claws dig into her helm.

_Primus help me, I am not going after him._

A tickle of a lost thought rose up in the back of her processor, the thought of a mech she hadn't thought of in a long while. Would Optimus let him go? Let him fester all alone? He was hurt, both body and soul. He was alone. So what if he was being a fragger? She had dealt with worse from the Autobots when she met them, so why was she running out on him?

Nightstalker groaned and dropped her face in her hands. Compassion, Optimus had said. Compassion would reach them.

She made another unintelligible, indistinguishable sound. She was going back, wasn't she? She was going to go after that stubborn, angry, butt-hurt dragon, and she was going to put up with his crap the way she had put up with the Autobot's crap, and all the other crap she had always put up with all her life.

Nightstalker growled at herself and began to stomp off in the direction Predaking had flown, muttering all the way.

"Nightstalker, you must have the patience of a SAINT to put up with all this slag. Cruddy dragon, acting like a child . . . Frag it all, he IS a child, isn't he! Fragging Primus, he's just a child! A big baby in a grown mech's body . . . ! Primus I bet you think you're funny, making me feel compassion and pity for that mech! Fragging gods and their sense of humor . . . I've got the patience of a saint for putting up with YOU too, Primus! You hear me? The patience of a SAINT!"


	71. Separated Siblings

**Author's Note:**

**I LIIIIIIIIIIIVE! *raises from the dead like Mushu***

**I want to apologize for taking horrendously FOREVER to update this, but after battling severe writer's block and real life hitting like a bitch, I have finally got this darned thing ready, and I like the chapter! So forgive me for taking so long, and please enjoy this chapter! :)**

* * *

><p>Two days. Her peds hurt from aimlessly walking in the hopes of finding where Predaking's trail had led, but since he flew, he left no clues for her to find. Her slightly crumpled wing had resorted to a dull, throbbing ache, and she was running low on energon. She was dirty, tired, and homesick. And still she hadn't found Predaking, and still no one had found her.<p>

She was tired. And grumpy.

Slugging along the next day after another night of her core temperatures dipping into the blue zone, Nightstalker trudged along, tiny heels clicking against the metal surface of a restored Cybertron. She just needed to find a well of some sort with running energon. If the planet was alive, there had to be energon somewhere. Angrily, Nightstalker scowled, knowing that Predaking could have easily traveled all of Cybertron at the rate of his flying which meant that she had lost the runt for good. And now, in the middle of nowhere, she had no idea how to get back to the Autobots or find them.

Nightstalker sighed. She wished Cliffjumper were there. She missed him. And Ratchet. Actually, she thought at the moment she missed Bumblebee the most. It had been too long since she had talked with him. Or played with him. She bet they were worried out of their minds too. Or maybe they thought she was dead. That would certainly be a morbid twist on things.  
>"Predaking," she said aloud, "I hate you."<p>

Yes. She hated him. She was quite sure of it. He had gotten her into this mess, he had disabled her wing, he had ran off like a little baby when he had said he wanted her with him. Huffing, Nightstalker touched her comm. link again for the umpteenth time.

"Guys? Hi. Hey. I'm here on Cybertron. Where are you all? Did you bridge back to Earth? Did you switch up frequencies? Am I in a dead spot, just like yesterday? Or is my comm. link fragging broken because I had a giant metal dragon throwing me up against the wall!"

With another snarl and stamp of her foot, Nightstalker walked onwards, stewing about her bad luck and that child of a dragon. She was going to teach him a thing or two when she saw him again. Oh yes she was. She didn't care what she had to do, Predaking had it coming to him. He really did. The least he could have done if he was ditching her was to fly her back to the Autobots.

Ped stubbing against something, Nightstalker squeaked and flailed her arms out as she stumbled forward and regained her balance. Looking at the offending shape jutting out of the ground, like an Earth rock, she scowled and turned, walking the rest of the way up the hill. And as she passed the crest of the hill, her sarcastic and angry thoughts slowed to a halt and her crossed arms fell limp at her sides. For a second, her throat was so tight she almost couldn't cycle, and her spark skipped a beat as dread suffused her throat.

_What is this?_

Her orange optics took in the miles and miles of skeletons. Only, they weren't the shells of dead Cybertronians. No. They were the bones of . . . of . . .

Her vocalizer cracked open. "Predaking!"

She had to be right on top of him. This was where he would stop. At a landscape filled with nothing but bones upon bones upon skeletons upon skeletons of dead Predacons. The dust stirred like the dirt of the Earth, only it was Cybertronian static over decayed metal and rust. Miles upon miles of skeletons, tainted and grim, and her spark beat in her throat only imagining what must have gone through Predaking's processor and spark when he saw the dead remains of what had once been his race.

"Predaking!" she shouted. She craned her head, looking for him as she ran deeper into the forlorn area. How in the world had this happened? These bodies hadn't been here before. She knew that. They were ancient skeletons. How had they moved back up to the surface? She almost skipped a step. Was she actually walking on the Sea of Rust? She hadn't seen the sea . . .

"Predaking! Predaking, where are you?" She ran on, avoiding the skeletons, determined not to disturb their resting place or desecrate it. "Predaking! Preda—AHH!"

She felt the wind gust a second before she felt a giant claw slam into her back and send her crashing face-first into the gritty surface of Cybertron. His transformation sounded above her, and his fist yanked her up to his face to glare into glittering yellow optics.

"LEAVE ME!"

He threw her on the ground, and Nightstalker felt every last breath of air gust forcefully from her body as pain flared up her back. He transformed again, and inches from her face, his mandibles extended and an unearthly roar shook her audio receptors.

Nightstalker screamed shrilly, and she cowered in terror. The roar cut off short, and then, as Nightstalker peeked up at him to see what was going on, he roared again, but the tone was different, not as enraged. She screamed and flinched, and her spark rate spiked along with her processing power.

_Is he posturing to me?_

Nightstalker screamed at him again, sitting up to face him. The great dragon rumbled a low growl in his chassis, and his tail twitched. He placed his claws wider and unleashed a guttural roar in her face, and while she shielded her audio receptors against the volume, she almost laughed.

_He's POSTURING at me! Well, if he wants to know who's the dominant animal here . . ._

Leaping to her feet, knowing that he wasn't going to hurt her, Nightstalker released the shrillest scream she could manage. A sharp sound jumped from Predaking as he winced at the pitch, and then, she glared at him, daring him to come back at her.

The great dragon hesitated, optics narrowing. Tail raising, he lifted his bulk and slammed both front peds down on the ground in front of her and released another air-shattering roar. Despite feeling her struts vibrating, Nightstalker didn't let herself back away. The instant he let up, she screamed again, fisting her servos and stamping her peds, making him back away again.

He shifted across from her, skittering to the side and back as he grumbled. Then, he surged up once more, wings flaring open wide as he roared so loudly she almost had to mute her audios because of the volume, peds slamming down on the ground. He beat the ground with his tail after that, daring her and using his size to intimidate her.

_This is taking too long._

Annoyed and fed up, Nightstalker sucked in a huge vent and released it on a pitch she didn't know she was capable of. The scream split the air like nails on a chalkboard, and she stamped a ped, flaring her wings and arms as big as she could. When she had expelled all she could in one long scream that had Predaking cringing, she fisted her servos at her side and glared at Predaking, chassis heaving in frustration.

However, to her pleasure, Predaking's wings folded back submissively. He grumbled lowly, claws scratching at the surface of Cybertron, and he hesitated, unwilling to be beaten by a femme a fraction of his size for asserting his dominance, but Nightstalker's wingtips twitched when she saw him working up another roar.

"Don't you DARE," she snapped at him, poking a claw in his face. His head reared back. "Now you can either sit your fat dragon aft down and listen to me or you can transform and we'll talk this out like civil sentient beings, got it?" The beast snarled, pawing at the ground petulantly and yellow optics cutting into her. Nightstalker curled a lip at him. She pointed at the ground. "SIT. OR TRANSFORM."

There was hesitation. With an angry whine in the back of his throat, she witnessed his haunches lower fractionally, and then, his transformation snapped angrily as he shrunk back down to a more manageable size and stood leering at her.

For a moment, Nightstalker just stared back, unable to wrap her processor around what had just happened. Then, discounting it for later, she hiked her chin up, saying, "Good. If you'd have sat down like a dog, I'd've REALLY had something to say." Then, the recent days caught up with her, and then, her orange optics popped and she threw up her arms. "And what the frag was that all about? I can't tell if you were fighting for dominance or throwing another temper tantrum! I walked all over Cybertron looking for your sorry aft because you dumped me off in the middle of nowhere! I've almost FROZE to death these past two nights, and all you've got to say for it is nothing. Nothing! You just throw a hissy fit!"

She began to pace, half throwing violent gestures at him and half yelling in his face. "I put myself out on a limb deciding to stick with you, and why? Not for myself! No, if I wanted to stick up for myself, I would have went back to the Autobots and not given two frags about your sorry aft! I went with you because you asked nicely and because I thought you needed a friend! Then you get all sulky and pitch a tantrum and leave me STRANDED with a wound that YOU gave me that left me GROUNDED!" She threw up her arms again, groaning loudly, not noticing that Predaking's angry glare had faded and his servos had unclenched from their fists.

"And after we nicely patch each other up like good friends do, you fragging run off and tear open your wound again, and look at you! Dripping energon all over the place, are you fragging TRYING to offline yourself? I didn't ask for any of this! I'm trying to help you since you're all alone in the fragging world, and you keep pushing me away! Now what have you got to say for yourself?"

Standing legs akimbo and arms crossed, Nightstalker narrowed her orange optics up at the giant mech. He seemed to shift marginally under her gaze, and he wouldn't look at her, face tilted away as he avoided her scorching look. The second he opened his mouth, however, she cut him off.

"If you're not telling me you're sorry, you better rethink what you're about to say."

He shifted again, a brief scowl touching his face before it faded. Finally, he looked back down at her. He took a measured breath. "Why did you come back?"

"Tell me you're sorry first, and maybe I'll answer."

He hissed. His servos clenched up as he bit down on the words, refusing to let them pass from his lips, believing it too demeaning a level for him to stoop to. His lip curled as he fought it, but Nightstalker didn't budge, waiting expectantly for the words. When he hesitated too long, she pointedly tapped her ped impatiently, and she watched his mouth move as an almost inaudible sound came out.

"Sorry."

Nodding in satisfaction, Nightstalker replied, "I came back because you were alone and miserable. And when I saw . . ." she hesitating, casting her servos out around them, "THIS, I knew more than ever that you needed someone that cared about you. So I chose to care."

"You can't just choose that."

"Of course I can. Now kneel down, I need to patch you up again."

He grumbled again for taking her order, but he knelt down on a knee, and when he was still too much taller than her, sat down so she could reach. Taking the welder from her subspace, the only thing she had on her person, Nightstalker wrinkled her olfactory system as she tended the wound Megatron had given him. It was old, stiffening around the edges but bleeding at the center where he had ripped the weld open with his transforming. Her own wound on her chest was healing, if stiffly, from the wound Starscream had given her.

Once she had finished, she put away the welder again, and she curled a finger to Predaking. "Now. Lean down."

He leaned back, as if affronted by the very idea. "Why? You've finished."

"Just trust me and lean down."

Haltingly, Predaking listened, and when he did, Nightstalker stepped up on his thigh, reached her arms up, and wrapped them around his neck, boldly giving him his first hug even though her spark sputtered uncertainly. He froze at the foreign feeling, and when a pregnant pause had passed, said, "What are you doing?"

"It's called a hug," she said. She squeezed him tighter, feeling a heavy stone sit in her chassis because he didn't even know. "We do it to express affection. You wrap your arms around someone and squeeze them."

For a second, he awkwardly took her hug, and then, she felt him move and arms rest around her loosely, as if he was afraid his strength would crush her if he put any pressure on her. After a moment, he said, "I don't see the point."

"The point is to show affection. There's no other point. People hug each other to show that they care for each other."

There was a pause. "You care about me?"

"Yep."

He stopped again. "Why?"

Her wings tipped downwards. "Because everyone needs someone to care about them."

They sat like that for a moment, and then, he asked, "How long does one hug?"

Nightstalker sputtered out a laugh, and she let go which made him let go. Stepping down, she answered, "Well, it depends on how bad someone needs a hug, I guess. And you really needed one."

His brows cinched. "How could you tell?"

She grinned then, shaking her head. "You can't really explain that. But don't worry. You'll figure it out someday." When his face remained pinched in thought, Nightstalker frowned. "What's wrong?"

Predaking cycled carefully, and he looked at her. "Why did Shockwave never hug me?"

Her jaw popped open and then shut promptly. "Ah—Um, he cared about you?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation, frowning right back at her. "He is my creator. He cares about me."

Hesitating, Nightstalker bit her lip. Shockwave. Care. Carefully choosing her words, Nightstalker said, "Well, not everyone hugs and is super emotional. Most Decepticons don't hug. My half brother never hugged me even though he cared about me." The words choked out as a strange half lie and half truth, but Predaking nodded, seemingly satisfied.

"I understand. I don't think I hug either."

Nightstalker almost laughed at that. Instead, she glanced up at Predaking uncertainly, wanting to know for herself, but worried she might overstep a line. "So, uh, how could you tell he cared about you?"

Predaking thought about it, and then answered. "I could sense it. Is that like how you can sense if people need hugs?"

Her lips twitched. "Yeah. Same thing."

They sat in silence for some time, the wind howling faintly through the bleak valley. He turned his helm, casting his yellow optics across the way. With a soft clearing of her throat, Nightstalker caught his attention.

"So, um . . . What are you thinking?" When he fixed her with an intense look, she gave a small shrug. "I . . . don't like the idea of you sitting around mourning endlessly over those who died a long time ago. Even if it wasn't by typical means, you were given the gift of life, so you need to do something with it."

She watched his lips press and his olfactory system crease on one side with a suppressed snarl. "We must go."

When the great Cybertronian stood, Nightstalker popped to her peds as well, exclaiming, "Wait—where? What's going on?"

His olfactory system contracted again, visibly taking a breath of something unpleasant. "Darkness is brewing on this planet. I feel it." His infallible gaze cut past the horizon as if searching for something. Finally, he said, "An Autobot informed me that more of my kind live here on this planet."

"An Autobot?" Nightstalker felt her wings perk up immediately, latching to his words with a leap of her spark. "Who was it? Did they ask about me? Did you tell them I was okay?"

He cast a glance down at her. "I told them it was no concern of mine where you were." Predaking's claw fisted, then relaxed. "But . . . The yellow one was adamant in finding you."

Warmth spilled into her spark. "Bumblebee . . . Was he the only one?"

Predaking shook his head. "There was a green one, and two blue ones with him. One was a femme."

"Bulkhead, Smokescreen, and Arcee," she murmured to herself. Where was Cliffjumper? She smiled up at Predaking. "Thank you. I have my family . . . now let's go find yours."

With a guttural sound of approval, Predaking transformed, and his wings spread, but his massive bulk didn't take off. When he waited expectantly, Nightstalker gestured to her wing. "I can't fly, remember? My wing's all bust—AH!"

She nearly bolted when his mouth opened and grabbed her, but instead he picked her up with gentle ease by the arm and planted her on his back. Squeaking uncertainly, Nightstalker hitched her legs up and stuck them on the armor of his back. She stuttered out some words, but when she felt his bulk collecting beneath her, her spark lodged in her throat and she immediately leaned down to grab his back. With a tremendous force, Nightstalker screamed shortly when Predaking took off with a jolting start, and after the first violent pumps of his wings, Nightstalker felt the erratic ride smoothen out to a rather relaxing cruise.

_So . . . I'm riding a dragon. Won't Fli-Ni be surprised._

* * *

><p><em>Nothing?<em>

_ No. Nothing._

_ . . ._

_ I'm sorry. She won't let me in. I . . . really fragged things up with her. To the point that . . . I don't think she'll ever let me back in._

_ . . ._

_ At least you know she's alive somewhere. And she doesn't seem to be in distress._

_ . . . Yeah. Thanks, Knockout._

"Chief! Hey, where's your head at?"

Yanked out of his musings, Nightfall blinked the world back into focus and looked at Wheeljack who had a brow quirked at him. Smiling sheepishly, Nightfall rubbed the nape of his neck.

"Ah, I was just thinking about my sister."

Wheeljack flashed a brief grin before returning his optics to the avenue of space. "Yeah? Don't kid yourself, Nightfall. She's doing just fine wherever she is, I guarantee it."

Nightfall felt his lips play against a smile. "Yeah?"

"Yeah I'm sure," Wheeljack said, acting affronted as he maneuvered the starship closer to Theta Scorpii that loomed in the distance. "That femme's got some cogs in her like I haven't seen. If she wasn't so scrawny, I wouldn't put it past her to have the cogs needed to be a Wrecker."

Before he could stop it, Nightfall laughed. "My sister? A Wrecker? Ha! Wheeljack, you're blowing smoke out your exhaust. She couldn't hurt a person if she tried, and we all know that even if she was a medic for the Wreckers, she'd have to be armed."

There was a pregnant pause. "Not to bust your bubble, Prime," Wheeljack said gruffly, "but she WAS Megatron's lead torturer for a span of time. Ask Cliff, he's got some stories to tell ya."

Nightfall winced. "Yeah . . . Yeah, that's right." He wrinkled up his olfactory system and crossed his legs in his seat, jiggling them thoughtfully. "I kinda forgot, y'know? She just . . . She seems so different anymore, to the point that I have a hard time envisioning her as a torturer."

Wheeljack chuffed a grunt. "I know what you mean. She's a lot different than the cowering little Decepticon she was when I first saw her." After a moment, Wheeljack gave a short snort of a laugh and situated his palms around the wheel again. "She's certainly grown up well, eh? Some medic must've done a good job setting an example to her."

"Eh?" Nightfall leaned over in exaggeration, cupping his servo to his audio. "What was that? I might have to get you to repeat that praise for Ratchet so I can get it on tape for the poor mech."

"Aw, shaddap," Wheeljack drawled, waving a disinterested hand at Nightfall, restraining himself from actually pushing his Prime's face away like he would have any other mech. "What the Doc don't know can't hurt him."

"Yeah, and it won't ever earn him a drop of respect from you either, will it?"

"Pit no. The Doc would hold it over my head until I got rust in my undercarriage."

They shared another laugh before things settled down again, and Nightfall relaxed back in the passenger seat, content to know that even though he was Prime he wasn't losing touch with his soldiers. He had talked to Bumblebee some about that since he was worried about how much contact with them would be too much for his station, but Bumblebee loved the fact that Nightfall related to them all so well. Overall, from what Bumblebee had gathered in the barracks, it seemed the entire crew liked his sociability. Apparently they had all wanted to have a touch of a more personal relationship with their Prime, and Optimus had grown more and more frosty over the years. Ratchet speculated it was because the Prime was afraid of getting too attached lest he was unable to order his soldiers into life threatening situations; either that, or the loss of so many under his command had already made his spark more callous despite his obvious compassion.

"Can you believe it?" Nightfall asked Wheeljack. "Bumblebee's a warrior now."

Wheeljack chuckled. "Kid's finally growing up."

"I know. He's gotten a lot more confident since he's gotten his voice back."

"And he's turning into a killer of femmes, too."

They chuckled again, and Nightfall felt a wistfulness grow in his spark. Whenever they found Nightstalker, she was going to be so surprised to hear Bumblebee speaking. He couldn't wait to see the look on her face . . .

"Do you think they'll find her?"

Wheeljack gave a barking laugh then, to the point that the Wrecker had to slap his own thigh in amusement. "Pit, if they DON'T find that femme, the sun'll freeze over. You've got the Protectobots all split up looking for her both on Earth and Cybertron, and I can promise you that you're not gonna be able to get Cliffjumper to take a breem for a stasis nap until he's found her. So quite your worrying, she'll be fine."

Nightfall cracked a rueful grin, and he rubbed the back of his helm sheepishly. "Yeah . . . You've made your point. Just wish I was as optimistic as you were."

Wheeljack chuckled. "Well, when you've been alive as long as I have and you've been through the things I've been through, you learn to get optimistic about everything or you'll be pessimistic about everything."

The young Prime glanced over at him. "Yeah? I heard we Protectobots just got the fumes of the kind of things you Wreckers walked into. And we got into some pretty heated things . . . Was that rumor true?"

His lip curled. "You've got no idea kid." Nightfall took those grim words as they were, and then, Wheeljack glanced over at him. He studied him a moment, and then he looked back out the front windshield. "Though, I'm kinda glad you don't. Might not've become Prime if you'd seen or done some of the stuff I have."

The silence sat heavily between them as the two mechs, each a member of a different unit now fused into the same group, contemplated their own thoughts. Nightfall felt his thoughts turn to the Protectobots, and he felt his lips turn up. He honestly couldn't wait to get back from this expedition. While they might have a lot of work to do to restore Cybertron, there was going to be plenty of time to hang out and catch up . . . and he had a LOT of catching up to do with them.

Then, after indulging in his own thoughts, his mind drifted back to the age of peace they were about to instigate with the retrieval of the All Spark. For the count, they had two rogue Decepticons, Starscream and Shockwave, Megatron was dead, and hopefully they could manage to get more of the Vehicons and Knockout to choose to defect and join them. Nightfall knew he would rather keep things as simple as peaceful as possible.

But . . . what to do about the politics? Nightfall didn't know the first thing about politics. They definitely weren't putting the caste system back in, but it couldn't be a dictatorship like Megatron had wished. Nightfall gave a small, perturbed vent. He didn't like the idea of himself as Prime being in charge, not only because he was a bit brain about politics, but also because the ruling of Primes in days past had got them in trouble. All that power couldn't rest with one person. The age of Primes had to change.

Did they dare handle the system more like a democracy? Nightfall's processor began to percolate. It seemed like a good idea. It had worked for some of the humans. A sort of plan with checks and balances, as the humans called it? Though he was Prime, other people could potentially veto an order of his if it wasn't in the best interests of Cybertron and its people . . . It would certainly keep things away from a dictatorship. But he couldn't just stack the government with Autobots. That would be one-sided and clearly manipulative. He'd have to get Neutrals to help lead. Preferably, he felt like it would be best because it would give more power to the people and less on the war factions, which had been slandered by the end of the war. Neither Autobots or Decepticons were liked at this point.

Nightfall paused. Decepticons. They had two rogue 'Cons and Knockout. Knockout wasn't his best option as the mech didn't seem like any position in power would suit him . . . but Shockwave or Starscream? His wings stiffened at the thought of Starscream. No. Starscream he would rather put out of his misery. That 'Con was nothing but traitorous, and his scheming would hurt the peace and he would try to usurp all the authority. Shockwave? Nightfall felt static prickle beneath his armor plating. He couldn't trust Shockwave at all. Something seemed manipulative beneath that mech's surface . . .

But, Shockwave HAD been a senator before the war. He would know politics best, wouldn't he? His wings twitched. If he could keep the Decepticon out of science, he might be more inclined to let the Decepticon have a role in the peace . . . Then again, he probably would have to chalk it up to the fact that no matter what Decepticon he let onto a new council he wouldn't be able to fully trust. That would be a bullet he would have to bite.

Well, that was, if he could even persuade a Decepticon to be a part of the peace.

"So . . . Not to pry into any Prime business . . . But why would Optimus shoot the All Spark all the way out into Theta Scorpii? One of the most hazardous star systems in the galaxy?"Nightfall blinked, looking over at Wheeljack. The Wrecker shrugged. "Just saying. Seems like a pointless trip we made. The All Spark's most likely blown to bits right now with all the asteroids, gamma bursts, planetoid collisions, and plasma storms that pummel this area."

Nightfall shrugged. "Why not? It'll deter people from searching here. Besides, if Optimus was shooting the future of our race out here, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't leave it in a breakable box."

"Seriously?" Wheeljack looked over at him with a dubious, arched brow. He returned his sights to the way ahead. "You're basing this all on a hunch?"

"No no no!" Nightfall shook his head, and he knocked on his chassis. "Matrix, remember? I can commune with the Primes of old. Optimus told me where to search, and I trust his judgment." He paused. "Besides, since the All Spark is pure energy, he must've had to make something to hold it all. Or something."

"Or something," Wheeljack muttered with a snort. "That's got to be the dumbest line of thinking I've ever heard, Prime."

Face pinching because Wheeljack obviously lacked the faith that he himself held, Nightfall protested, "Well—those relics you all found were in nigh indestructible canisters! What's to say it's any different for something as important as the All Spark?"

Wheeljack snickered again, and Nightfall felt his wings perk up in annoyance. "Yeah. Hopefully its little container didn't break open between planet collisions . . ."

"All right, Wheeljack, enough with your sarcastic comments. Just get us out there, will you?"

The Wrecker waved a hand of dismissal. "All right, all right. I'll try not to scratch the paint on this tub. But no promises."

The ships engines gave a deep rumbling whirr as Wheeljack prepared to move them forward, and then, Nightfall reached a hand out, putting it in front of Wheeljack. "Wait." He frowned, optics roving over the clusters of asteroids ahead, and he wrinkled his olfactory system. He shook his head. "I better head out there. I'd rather not risk damaging the ship, and besides, at my size, I can fit through there easily."

Wheeljack shrugged as Nightfall stood up, saying, "You the boss."

Rolling his optics, Nightfall cast his optics about. "Hey, you got some sort of tow cabling?"

"Locker on your right."

Opening and finding the tow cabling exactly where Wheeljack had said it was, Nightfall saluted to the Wrecker, looped the heavy cables around his shoulder, and hopped out the back. For a second, he floated, and then, transforming so the cabling was looped around the nose of his alt mode, Nightfall's engines kicked hot as he delved into the asteroid field.

Zipping along, Nightfall weaved himself in between the giant rock formations with ease, no real trouble hampering his way, even though the sun in the distance hurt his optics. Being careful not to dislodge the cabling, Nightfall fixated his optics in the distance. He didn't see the All Spark.

He squeaked when a rolling asteroid actually grazed his wing, but then he laughed at how jumpy he had become and skimmed over the surface of the next. Flying in space was . . . different, than on Earth. Out here, there were no pleasurable drafts of air, or the feel of the wind sliding over the aerodynamics of his alt mode. Earth's atmosphere had definitely made flying more fun than simply propelling yourself along with your engine. It made tricks easier too.

Aha! Nightfall's spark leapt in its casing when he spotted it—a casing, much like an elaborate vase, and its container glowed mightily with the distinct energies of the All Spark. Squinting against the bright lights in the distance that had gotten closer over the span of time it had taken him to get out there, Nightfall was about to gun it for the precious artifact when he heard Wheeljack contact him over the comm. link.

"Nightfall. Plasma storm, incoming."

Looking up at the offending lights again, Nightfall studied it, and then, he felt his energon tanks hit his peds. A PLASMA STORM? For a klik, he wavered in indecision, and when, when his sights grazed the All Spark waiting just ahead, he gunned it.

It took Wheeljack just a short moment to realize that Nightfall was getting further away from the ship. "Get outta there! That All Spark container may be indestructible, but you aren't!"

"I know!" Nightfall said back, adrenaline beginning to pulse in his systems. "I'm too close, Wheeljack! It's right there, and I can outrun it! I'm most definitely fast enough!"

The cabling laid flat against his belly as he zoomed along, this time with great fervor as he outran a ticking clock. He could hear it now, as he drew closer to the storm and the storm rolled his way. He could hear its ominous rumbling and the cracking of lightning bouncing about in the electricity.

But the All Spark . . . it was right there! And—wait. With just a dose of trepidation as Nightfall came within attacking distance, he realized that the All Spark container was far bigger than he had originally thought.

_I am so dead. I am going to die, dear Primus I am sorry. Frag me flying, WHY is the casing so big!_

Transforming and landing on the giant container, Nightfall hurriedly unraveled the tow cabling and lashed it securely around the All Spark, cursing under his breath as he did so. The fragging container had to be taller than he was and as wide as Bulkhead! His audios began to ring a little at the pressure he could feel emanating from the plasma storm, and the cracks of electricity whipped like lightning, devouring all in its path. Rubble began to fly his way as the storm overtook the asteroid field, destroying the great floating rocks and anything in its way.

Tying the cabling to himself as well, Nightfall transformed and jetted. The tow cabling drew slack almost immediately and Nightfall grunted when it tightened around him. Straining against the weight, they began to move too slowly for the Prime's taste as he slowly gained the velocity needed to get moving. His spark rate rocketed into the roof when he could feel the outer layer of the storm overtaking him, prickles of powerful static clinging to his wingspan and short-circuiting his inner mechanisms. His spark reacted violently, twisting in pain while his engines roared and thrusters burned in the effort to put some space between the danger.

There was a crackle in his comm. link again. ". . . don't . . . between us . . . right now . . ." He was gaining speed. Nightfall strained himself, burning his thrusters to a threatening point, half scared of blowing an engine but more afraid of the roaring beast behind him that spat electricity and plasma and a shower of rubble and dust, all that was left of the asteroids it eviscerated. He had to turn his comm. link all the way up just to be able to hear Wheeljack's distorted voice above the roaring storm. "Nightfall . . . ! Keep the . . . detach . . . we need to . . . can be another . . . out while . . . !"

"Wheeljack!" He shouted back, trying to get a hold of the Wrecker. "I'm fine! I'm coming! Turn the ship around, get ready to jet! Wheeljack? Wheeljack!"

Ignoring the panic, Nightfall dug in deep, and ignoring the warning signals flashing before his optics, Nightfall drove onwards. The All Spark smashed against an asteroid, sending it careening off course, and Nightfall's engines screamed and jerked to keep them on course towards the ship. The hyper watts of static electricity clung to him like a shroud, and he felt his systems give an uncomfortable hiccup. The shockwaves of exploding stone rocked his straight-shot course, and the All Spark banged around behind him, dragging him back slower.

His spark leapt in his chassis. The ship! Either Wheeljack had somehow gotten his message or had taken the initiative to turn the ship around, ready to flee, and the hatch was already dropped, still waiting on him.

A thunderous bang and explosion rocked behind him. The shockwaves hit him with force, and Nightfall shouted when he was literally blown upwards and off course. Then, the cabling slacked, and with a breathless gasp, Nightfall felt the cabling snap taunt and yank him, sending him flying in the opposite direction.

Engine grumbling as the world slowly oriented itself again, Nightfall's optics snapped open wide at the brilliance of the storm on top of him. The plasma was volatile, streaks of flames rippling through the fluctuating waves. Sprays of energon blue slashed against palpitating pockets of plasma, pink and purple oscillating at different intensities while bright white flashes of lightning seared his optics. The dust glittered like silver it was so fine and the rubble rained down like hail. The voltage of static was powerful, clinging to his metal and suffusing in his throat, and his optics flickered at the terrifying resplendence before him.

Breaking himself away from the paralyzing stupor, Nightfall veered himself around, and a streak of wild hope filled him when he saw how close the All Spark had been knocked towards the ship. Soaring forward, Nightfall transformed and landed on the open hatch. Digging the tips of his peds down, Nightfall dragged the All Spark to the ship, vents opened futilely as he had no cool air in the vacuum of space to cool his overheating systems. The hot static filled the air, filled the ship, and he could hear the engines hiccupping and puttering. His limbs were locking, freezing up as he dragged the All Spark close, body seizing in spasms as the force of the electricity slowly began to overwhelm his body.

Gritting his dentures and ignoring the burning sensation his body was feeling, Nightfall yanked the All Spark close and grabbed it, and his servo slapped the button to close the hatch. Choking and coughing on the sheer amount of dust and static overwhelming his system, the second the hatch closed with a fine clang, an asteroid smashed against the back of the ship. The force made Nightfall hit the floor and the All Spark container to slide forward in response. Nightfall lifted his helm, optics glitching and vocalizer fritzing.

"Cutting it a bit close, eh Prime?"

The ship creaked and groaned under stress. "Wheeljack," his patchy, ragged voice managed to make out, "get us out of here!"

The Wrecker whirled around and grabbed the controls. "Hang on to your hubcaps!"

With a loud rattle, the engines revved up and the thrusters kicked on mightily as they took off into deep space again. Since he wasn't strapped down, Nightfall skidded against the floor when they took off, but he felt the pressure of the storm easing. Thinly coughing with a deep want for some sort of air to clean his systems, Nightfall looked down on his servos that were literally coated in sparking static. Shaking, Nightfall stood up shakily, ankles wobbling weakly at his brush with death, and he staggered to the side and braced himself on the wall. He swore under his breath when a painful electrostatic discharge emitted from the touch of metal against metal.

The toll being a bit too much, Nightfall sank back down to the ground, flinching when static shock erupted everywhere he touched. With a grunt and fumbling fingers, Nightfall untied the tow cabling and tossed it to the side, struggling to get his wind back.

"You okay back there, Prime?"

He nodded. "Yeah." Grimacing, he shifted positions and coughed deeply again. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Hmph. You're glowing a bit, chief."

Wincing again and looking down at his legs where the static electricity clung like a blanket, Nightfall closed his optics and leaned back, systems recalibrating and some things even rebooting. "Yeah. Just a little."

There was a pause in the silence as the faint thunder of the plasma storm rolled away. Finally, Wheeljack had to say,

"I thought it'd be bigger."


	72. A Trick

**Author's Note:**

**I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG.**

**I have literally had the worst writer's block for this story, and for some reason, this chapter was being the BIGGEST butt to write! Nightstalker and Nightfall just wouldn't cooperate. XD And too boot, it's a short chapter. T.T You've got NO IDEA how many times I wrote and rewrote this chapter because I wasn't satisfied with it because I KNEW I could write better than what was coming out on the page. I'm still only so-so about the chapter, but I think this is the best it's going to get.**

**I decided to get the major movie plot points done first and focus on other things in the next chapter. Next chapter should be a lot more interesting, and I can promise that there will be some sweet revenge. ^.^**

* * *

><p>In conclusion, Nightstalker decided that she would rather fly than ride on a dragon.<p>

First, the obvious, she loved flying. But no one had prepared her for her butt aching so much from just sitting and holding on to Predaking as he soared over Cybertron. Plus, it wasn't all that smooth of a ride. He had to pump his wings to keep his flight. And it took longer. He wasn't as fast as a jet.

In all, her spark began to ache more for Ratchet, not only to fix her wing, but also to see her family in general. How was one supposed to deal with homesickness?

Nightstalker released a shrill shriek when Predaking abruptly angled down and dove to the ground. Grabbing on to his back and hanging on, she felt his bulk tense and reel sharply up at the last second, and his transformation changed him back into his bipedal mode. Nightstalker plopped on his massive shoulders with a breathless squeak.

Trying to situate herself a touch more comfortably, Nightstalker started to ask, "What are we—" and then bit her glossia and grabbed on to him again when he bent down, seemingly oblivious to her presence. He touched the ground, and Nightstalker's orange optics widened at the deep claw marks etched into Cybertron's hide.

"Tracks," he told her. "The Autobot spoke the truth!"

Nightstalker wrinkled her nose, still irritated that he had seen them and chased them off. "Of course he did. Bumblebee doesn't lie."

"And that means . . . other Predacons DO exist. But it seems they took flight here."

Looking about, Nightstalker saw what he was looking at—the markings ended. He was right. She supposed he would be, part dragon and all. He knew how to track, not her.

She watched his mouth press from the dead end. "Locating my brethren will be a futile endeavor . . ." His optics sharpened. "Unless I allow them to locate ME."

Nightstalker yelped again when he transformed, and immediately heat collected and pooled between her legs. Nightstalker shrieked and ducked, covering her helm as a searing line of flames were jettisoned into the dark sky as a stark beacon.

Well. So he definitely respected her enough NOT to kill her, but he clearly was displaying that he wasn't taking orders or allowing her to make decisions. Nightstalker huffed an annoyed vent from her systems. So, he was having her along, but as of now, she was just getting toted around like a toy.

When the stream of fire ceased, she rapped on his shoulder. "Hey, Predaking?" She received a pensive rumble in response, and the spines on the back of his head flexed as he turned his head just enough to acknowledge that she existed. "I'm glad you're going to be reunited with your own kind and have some family for yourself. But can you tell me why you're kidnapping me along for the ride?"

The spines flexed and relaxed again, as if the question was probing. Finally, he transformed once more, sending her arms flailing for a clutch-hold. He turned his face to her, a brow raising. "You are flightless. To leave you without protection would be to leave you for dead."

Nightstalker blinked. Then, she remembered Jack telling her about a bird he had found—he had nursed it back to health. That was right. Wingless animals would perish in the wild. She had to stifle a laugh. A desolate Cybertron wasn't exactly "the wild" but he was treating her as if she was a Predacon.

Her processor stalled. He was treating her . . . like she was one of his own. More like a disabled, child-like underling since he wasn't taking anything she said into account . . . but one of his, nonetheless.

Clearing her vocalizer, Nightstalker scooted back on his shoulder so he didn't have to strain so hard to see her. The large, curved pauldron sank a little with her weight, but only marginally. More than ever, Nightstalker felt insignificantly small, and her wings fluttered.

"Surely that can't be the only reason," she said. She quirked a brow and crossed her arms. "You DID leave me at one point, perfectly crippled before."

She watched his features flatten in irritation that she was pulling it up again. He turned his face away and looked up at the sky for anyone that could possibly show up and save him from the conversation. None coming, she heard nearly every vent in him open up to release a heated puff of air.

"You . . . impressed me. I threatened you with death, and you . . ." He looked back at her, and a servo almost as large as her hovered above her head. "Tiny. Crippled. INSENSIBLY small. You reacted toward me without fear and challenged me to think. Only one person has challenged me to think, that believed I was more than just an animal to do their bidding." She witnessed his brows cinch at the thought. "You also claim you care about me, and as of yet, I have no reason not to believe it. You may not have my trust, but certainly my respect, for your spark," and he fisted his servo and gave a solid hit to his own chassis, "is strong."

Nightstalker tried her best not to blush, but she felt heat fill her cheeks anyways. One of the most dangerous mechs on Cybertron . . . was impressed with her. Embarrassed and beyond knowing what to do anymore, she stuttered, "W-Well, um . . . Yeah—Okay. Thank you? I um . . ."

Predaking stared at her. "I will bring you back to your own family." He paused. "I was . . . excited to meet some of my own."

She felt herself smile immediately. "I can imagine," she said, tickled pink that he was enthusiastic about something. She could honestly imagine the excitement he was feeling. After having lost his brothers and now he found out some were alive? Nightstalker felt her lips curl. Yeah, she could imagine that.

Lithely, Nightstalker slid from his shoulder and landed on her peds. "Where will you all go?" she asked him.

He squatted down to her height obligingly so he didn't tower over her. Even crouched down, he was massive. "I do not know." He looked over the horizon. "Perhaps the peaks in the distance. Far enough for solitude."

Nightstalker looked, and her optics widened. She snapped. "I know that place. They're the . . . the Manganese Mountains. I used to fly over those."

His optics lit up. "You did?"

Nightstalker grinned and nodded. "Yeah, I did! That was back when I was a Decepticon, but I used to do all sorts of tricks up there. The drafts were hard to use since the wind blew through the mountains and not so much over it. I used to love it out there."

Predaking paused. "What made you choose the Autobots over the Decepticons?"

She looked up at him, and following his gaze, her optics landed on the Autobot symbol on her chassis. "Ah, well . . . I used to be a torturer." For some reason, the words came out more easily than they ever had. She took heart in that. "And I was in the middle of my work on an Autobot when . . . I don't know, something just changed." She smiled softly. "And if you want to know the real irony, that mech I was torturing eventually became my mate."

Predaking gave a grunt of approval. "Cliffjumper," he stated. "Then you both must have come a long way."

She crossed her arms, holding both elbows. Her cheeks brightened as she actually thought about all they had gone through. "You have no idea, Predaking."

A soft silence settled between them. With it, Predaking stood, looking to the sky again. Nightstalker chafed her arms and walked quietly away, suddenly missing Cliffjumper so much it hurt. She closed her optics and took a deep breath, letting her wings relax and dip low.

"Nightstalker."

Her wings snapped upright and she turned quickly, almost thinking the Predacons had come, but Predaking was looking at her. He paused. "The Manganese Mountains . . . After we part our ways, will I see you fly over them again?"

The edge of her lip curled up. "I'm sure I can manage it," she promised. He seemed pleased, and he nodded his helm to her and wandered a little farther, head craned to the sky in anticipation of his coming brothers.

Sighing and letting her wings drop again, Nightstalker walked off to the side, seeing evidence of a struggle. What had happened? Did they fight? Her servo touched a large slab of wall that had fallen. She could see the empty spot above. A scorch mark scarred the area across from her.

Then, she heard a faint engine in the distance.

"The beacon . . . it worked!"

Nightstalker whirled around to see Predaking farther ahead, and the engine noise grew to a sharp pitch before the large jet transformed.

She felt her energon drain from her features. Her peds welded to the ground in abject terror, and she felt her wings sag limply.

Predaking's face immediately swapped from one of excitement to one of anger. "Megatron?"

He stood to his full height, upgraded, massive, as large as Predaking. Nightstalker felt her knees wobble. What had he done to himself? Surely he wouldn't have wasted his time hunting them down . . . surely not . . .

"Warrior!" Nightstalker flinched and covered her mouth so a scream wouldn't slip out. She ducked behind the slabs, trembling. He hadn't seen her. He hadn't seen her, he didn't know she was here. "I call upon you to serve your master!"

Her processor lit up as she realized something was wrong. Turning on her knees and peeking over her hiding place, she gazed at Megatron. Was he insane? He had to be. Predaking was NEVER going to serve him again.

True to her thoughts, Predaking's face warped with a hideous sneer of fury. "In the name of the mighty legions of Predacons who preceded me, I shall never again yield to your charge. But I will heed your previous advice and face my true enemy—AS A BEAST!"

Nightstalker's optics popped when Predaking transformed and opened his maw, releasing a powerful stream of flames at Megatron, literally scorching the warlord's new frame. Megatron roared out in anger, voice modulated and distorted unlike she had ever heard it before.

Predaking roared and charged. Nightstalker watched as Megatron's frame, glowing from the heat, was snatched up in the dragon's maw. He fought for a second, like she knew he would, but Predaking blasted him away with a fireball. She swallowed. She knew there was only going to be one survivor, and as much as she knew she would rather it be Predaking, she couldn't help but hope that both would leave alive.

She shook her head. What had Ratchet called it? Stockholm? She didn't even know if it was right to call it that at this point anymore . . .

Before she could contemplate it longer, she had to slap her servos over her mouth to suppress a cry when she saw, from his hands, a feat like magic. Around him, the sinister, poisonous glow of Dark Energon heightened and glittered as it formed around his arm like a massive, spiked canon. She flinched and ducked into her hiding spot when he blasted Predaking. She shook.

Dark Energon? What was he thinking! He would never go back to the stuff! Not after what it had done to his ship, not after knowing Unicron could tamper with his processor. She knew Megatron, and if there was one thing she knew, it was that he would NEVER let anyone into his processor. He would despise it. WHY would he ever go back to it? What sort of desperation could have possibly pushed him that far?

Among the sounds of battle, Nightstalker froze when she heard Predaking give a low, pained whine. Her body stiffened when she heard a thunderous crash, and then silence.

"Now," and Nightstalker popped back up, seeing Megatron looming over Predaking. "Let us learn more of these mighty legions of which you spoke."

She shrank when he placed his servo on top of Predaking's unconscious head. He wasn't killing him? That was not like Megatron. He delighted in battle and savored the kill. Come to think of it, he didn't even speak like that . . .

Dark energon.

Unicron could control his . . . MIND . . .

She almost gasped. She felt it lodge in the back of her throat as she forcibly swallowed it down, and she ducked into hiding again. Unicron. Oh Primus, Unicron. Had he been possessed by Unicron? What did Unicron want? HOW had that even HAPPENED? Her spark sputtered nervously in her chassis as she prayed to Primus very, VERY hard for Unicron not to notice her.

"Ah . . ." She felt a sickened shudder shake her frame. "Now I know what I require to tear this world asunder!"

A transformation sounded, and Nightstalker winced when his engines kicked hard and sent him flying off into the sky. For several breathless moments, Nightstalker waited in the silence, spark hammering in her chassis, and when Predaking didn't stir, she leapt out of her hiding spot.

"Predaking!" He lay in his dragon form, completely knocked out. She ran to his side and knelt at his helm. "Predaking! Predaking, come on, wake up!" She shook him. "Dark energon reanimates the dead! He's going to desecrate the burial ground for the Predacons!" She shook him again. "Pred—!"

Swallowing mid shout, she caught sight of his damaged helm. It was caved in, partially cracked, and energon was slowly leaking from it. Seeing that he wasn't gaining his consciousness anytime soon, she set to work on doctoring him up as well as she could.

He had to wake up soon, or there was no telling what would happen to them.

* * *

><p>Never mind that Unicron was rising. Never mind that he had missed out on all the action for dead end rescue missions with the Protectobots. Never mind that Unicron had possessed Megatron's body for the job—actually, he minded that. It gave him a second chance at offlining the warlord himself.<p>

A servo clapped his shoulder. "Hey," Groove said. "Cheer up. We'll find her."

"We've been over the entirety of Cybertron!" Cliffjumper snapped. He flung out a servo towards the remains of Nova Cronum. "We've been over Earth and Cybertron, we've tried everything!" Swallowing a strangled breath in the effort to calm himself, Cliffjumper pressed his shaking servos to his helm.

"Let's not give up hope yet," Hot Spot said, herding his team into the ship. "We know she's still alive. That, at least, is something Knockout is useful for. If she was planning on surviving, she'd clearly have to be on the move. We could have missed her at any point and time."

Cliffjumper hissed in annoyance. "Whatever makes you feel better," he muttered. He squeezed his optics shut. He shook his head and let his shoulders fall. "Sorry. That was uncalled for." His optics scoured over Cybertron's surface again in the attempt to hopefully see her silhouette, but he couldn't help his fading hope.

"Hey, Hot Spot, we've got trouble."

The leader looked up to Streetwise. "Trouble? What kind?"

Streetwise stood on the slope into the ship. "The undead kind," he said grimly. "Bumblebee wants us back at the NEMESIS stat. Unicron's rising, and he's leading an army of undead Predacons. How's that for insane, yeah?"

"It's gonna be a fun battle," Blades said with a grin. "Let's hurry up and get there, already. They need all the help they can get."

Hot Spot nodded curtly. "Let's load up." He took Cliffjumper's shoulder again, and he squeezed it. "Hey. No better way to let out some stress and frustration than to kill something, right?"

Cliffjumper forced a nod. "Might as well. Kill Unicron, and get back to more important things, right?"

When he gave Hot Spot a half smirk, the mech laughed, clapped his shoulder again and pushed him into the ship. "Now you're talking! Groove, get this ship off the ground and rendezvous at the NEMESIS!"

* * *

><p>Nightstalker couldn't get her mind off Cliffjumper.<p>

It seemed that, knowing that Unicron was at large and such a vivid threat made her want to see Cliffjumper so badly it hurt. She knew the dire situation last time Unicron had awakened, and she wanted to see him, if just to make sure that if she were actually living her last moments, she would be able to spend them in the arms of a loved one.

She hunched over Predaking's back as he flew them directly back to the graveyard they had left. Primus she missed him so much . . .

_Why didn't you listen to him, Nightstalker? You knew as well as he did you loved each other, you were just a coward . . ._

_ Oh Cliff, I should have bonded with you . . ._

It would have solved all of their issues. The bots would have been able to find her because Cliffjumper would have been able to speak with her through the bond, she wouldn't have been homesick, she wouldn't have to deal with yearning for him. She thunked her helm on Predaking's back. Stupid, STUPID. She had been afraid for too long in her lifetime.

Her knees tightened on Predaking's back when he began to coast down, and she lifted her helm to see the two mechs below. They seemed to be the only ones left in the barren land that had been strip-mined of all bones.

This time, when he transformed, Nightstalker was ready and landed on his shoulder. He completely bypassed the others at first, distressed, but Nightstalker glanced over her shoulder, seeing their optics narrow and faces wrinkle up.

"The burial ground . . . desecrated! Strip mined of all that remained of our ancestors!"

One of the other Predacons snickered. "You should have been here to see them rise and shine!"

Predaking turned, hesitant to show any hope. "They . . . live?"

"If you call being undead living," the second bit out.

Nightstalker fluttered her wings nervously. That wasn't just an army, that was an entire RACE of skeletons enslaved to Unicron's bidding. What was he doing with them? Hellfire and brimstone, for sure!

"Dark magic!" Predaking barked. "Perpetrated by the demon who lives in Megatron's skin!"

He reeled back defensively, wings tensing. "Just be glad you're alive so the demon can't pull YOUR strings!"

"Do you not comprehend the scope of this tragedy? We three are proof that our mighty race might once again have flourished. Their remains must be reclaimed, if for no other reason than to be properly put back to rest."

The first one hissed when Predaking brushed by them. "And who made you boss?"

Predaking halted and stiffened. "I am not your boss . . ." He whirled, optics flashing dangerously. "I am you're KING!"

Nightstalker heard more than saw Predaking's claws open aggressively. Jumping from his shoulder quickly, Nightstalker took cover from the brawl about to break out. It was a battle for dominance of the pack. How fitting.

And, not to her surprise at all, Predaking put the smack down on them both. She had been briefly worried since it was two on one, but he pinned both Predacons beneath him and forced them to yield. Shortly after—and even though her spark jumped—Shockwave, battered and beaten, showed up to inform them all of what was REALLY going on. Unicron, with an army of undead Predacons, was hellbent on destroying the core of Cybertron itself.

Where did that leave Nightstalker?

Riding Predaking into battle, apparently; swooping in like heroes because clearly the _NEMESIS_ was taking a beating. Nightstalker clutched Predaking's back, spark plummeting to her stomach when she watched the NEMESIS get lambasted hard enough that the rear engines blew. The ship tipped and careened downwards. It crashed thunderously to the ground, screeching and wailing with tension along Cybertron's surface before it skidded to a halt just beside the mouth of the Well of All Sparks.

Predaking's bulk shifted, and she leaned down when he slanted his wings back, gaining speed as they sought to align with the Autobots that had been shot down. Hitching her legs up and placing her peds on Predaking's neck, Nightstalker jumped as Predaking transformed and landed heavily on the ground. She plopped on his shoulder pauldron.

"Nightstalker!"

She smiled wide, spark exploding with happiness. "Bumblebee!"

She slid off of Predaking and directly into his arms. With a laugh, she hugged him tightly as he quite literally crushed her into his chassis. In the midst of it, her processor caught up with her audios. As he put her down, Nightstalker gaped, "Bumblebee—your VOICE—!"

Before anything more could be said, she was snatched up in familiar arms. A pair of lips crushed down on hers, and a sound Nightstalker couldn't place emitted from her vocalizer. She grabbed his chassis for stability, and then he embraced her tightly, tucking her helm to his shoulder. Her lips tingled after the rough kiss.

"Primus alive, Nightstalker, I was so worried about you. You beautiful, beautiful strong femme, Primus I'm so proud of you . . ."

Nightstalker took a deep breath of his scent, spark humming and warming at his affections. Finally, she pushed away, saying, "I'm afraid we've got bigger worries, Cliff."

They looked back across Cybertron's surface, and ice chilled in Nightstalker's circuits at the horizon filled with so many undead Predacons. Cliffjumper squeezed her hand, and Nightstalker looked back at him. He grinned at her.

"Eh, doesn't look too bad. I think we can take them."

Nightstalker smiled gently, comforted by his bravado, pointless as it seemed. She squeezed back, spark lodging with adrenaline somewhere in her throat.

"I'm sure we can."

* * *

><p>"Well, here we are! Hey, and check out Ugly down there!"<p>

Nightfall looked out the windshield of the ship as Wheeljack brought them down into Cybertron's orbit. Unicron, in possession of Megatron's body, glared directly up at them. "But that doesn't make sense," Nightfall muttered. "What's he doing? Surely he's got something trying to kill Primus! I don't know, undead zombies! Those usually accompany the Chaos Bringer!"

Craning his head back for the nth time, Nightfall looked toward the All Spark container. "All right, clearly I didn't think this through," he started. "But we've gotta keep the All Spark as far away from Unicron as possible or else he's gonna destroy it. All right?"

"Just say the word, Chief," Wheeljack told him, banking around.

"I'm going to go down and head him off. Wheeljack, you take this ship and get as far away from Cybertron as you can."

Opening the back hatch and leaping out, Nightfall transformed and jetted down, wondering what the hell he was getting himself into. Heading straight towards Megatron's warped body, Nightfall watched as in his hand, Dark Energon formed like magic into a deadly lance. Whipping into a barrel roll to dodge it, when he heard an explosion behind him, Nightfall realized belatedly that he hadn't been aiming for him at all. The crash of Ultra Magnus' ship was audible as Nightfall transformed and kicked Unicron in the face.

"Megatron!" He ducked beneath his powerful swings, playing more of a cat and mouse game with Unicron. Unfortunately, Nightfall was the mouse. "Okay, so I know you and I have our disagreements, but you've overcome Unicron's control before, so you can do it again!" He slashed his sword out and cut the warlord's knuckles as Unicron barreled down upon him. "Unless, you know, you're really dead!" Which . . . wouldn't be horrible . . .

Unicron snarled, a lip curling up. "Megatron may hear you, but he cannot help you!" Nightfall squawked and scurried between his spread legs when a massive hand reached down to snatch him up. "For he is enduring eternal suffering!"

Now, eternal suffering for Megatron, that was one thing Nightfall was perfectly fine with. It just kinda so happened that Unicron was also trying to make that a thing for everyone else. A massive fist finally pummeled the young Prime into the surface of Cybertron. Nightfall felt his back and head crack to the ground and his chassis cave in to dominant knuckles. Every breath of air gusted from his systems.

And, his aft was saved again by none other than his father. Dreadwing plowed into the Chaos Bringer shoulder first and sent the mech collapsing back on the ground. Unicron came back to his peds quickly, and before he could bring his Dark Energon weapon down on Dreadwing, the Polarity Gauntlet stopped him cold. Unicron snarled and strained against the mechanism to no avail.

"Nightfall!" Groaning and springing back to his peds, he heard Bumblebee shout out, "Go! Save the All Spark!"

"On it!" Nightfall hollered back. He transformed and flew across Cybertron again to the site of the wreck, inwardly yelling at the top of his lungs. What was he SUPPOSED to do to save the All Spark? His best bet had been getting it off Cybertron and away from Unicron, but with Magnus' ship busted, that was completely out of the question. Not with Unicron's swarm of undead Predacons heading directly to the core of Cybertron—that was an interesting development Dreadwing communicated to him through spark. He had to destroy Unicron—NOW. Cybertron wouldn't survive otherwise.

Nightfall landed where Bulkhead and Arcee were helping Wheeljack from the wreckages. The white mech jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "So how we gonna get that thing to safety?"

"The frag if I know!" Nightfall exploded. "The All Spark is the least of our problems with undead Predacons about to kill the core of Cybertron! I've gotta destroy Unicron somehow! What do I do, just declare the Matrix to light our darkest hour?"

"You can't destroy Unicron," Arcee snapped. "He's the core of Earth! You kill him, and you kill Earth and every living thing on it!"

Nightfall threw his servos up. "Well, clearly his life force is here now! So if I can't kill him, what am I supposed to do?"

"Contain him," Arcee stressed, "like Optimus did before!"

Before he could stop it, a sarcastic laugh jumped from Nightfall's mouth. "Contain him? How? It's not like I can just put him in a jar on a shelf!" Stopping short, Nightfall's optics jumped to the All Spark sequestered in its container. He stared.

"Oh frag me flying."

Rushing to the relic that was holding nothing but pure energy, Nightfall jumped up on top of it. "Nightfall!" he heard Arcee cry. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not entirely sure!" he admitted to her, but he opened his chassis. There was only one place to put all that energy, and it had to be in another relic of the Primes. And, well . . . the only one he had on hand was the Matrix sitting snug in his chassis. Nightfall laughed to himself, a touch of hysterics coloring his voice. "Oh, wouldn't it be funny if this killed me or something . . ." he muttered under his breath, wondering just what the side effects would be. Before he could cop out of his own idea, Nightfall opened up the All Spark container.

Like a magnet, the energies rushed into his chassis. Nightfall's wings snapped up and his optics briefly filled with white static at the force filling the Matrix. He felt his spark stuttering as it tried to regulate its steady beat before the energies finally swirled inside the Matrix. His chassis clanged shut and the empty container shut as well.

Feeling a bit dizzy, Nightfall slid off the jar he had acquired for Unicron, bracing himself on the side of it. Arcee stared at him in something akin to horror, and she rasped, "Fli-Ni . . . What did you do?"

He rubbed his brow. "I, um, I'm not entirely sure, and I'm not going to worry about it yet." He jerked to attention seeing Megatron's possessed-by-Unicron body flying directly towards him. "First thing first," and he grabbed the reliquary of the Primes, intending on dragging it even if it was bigger than him, "I've got to keep this thing away from him!"

In response to his words, the three Autobots with him open fired on the incoming Chaos Bringer. Nightfall dragged the container, cursing how big it was and how nothing seemed to be made for a small Prime. He heard violent crashing and cries that came distinctly from Bulkhead, Wheeljack, and Arcee. He whirled around, drawing his shield and sword as Unicron approached.

"Hand over the All Spark!" Unicron snarled at him, purple optics blazing down on him. Deadly weapons of Dark Energon formed on his servos.

Nightfall dug his peds in. "If you think I'm just gonna hand it over without a fight, you've got it all wrong!"

Nightfall launched himself at the Chaos Bringer with a lot more bravado than actually bravery. He traded blows with the mech for only a short amount of time before he was viciously backhanded and went crashing into the side of Magnus' ship. He groaned, lifting his head as Unicron grabbed the empty relic.

His obsession blinded him. "I shall devour your All Spark whole!" The lid swiveled open, revealing its lack of contents. "What? A trick!"

Nightfall cracked a grin when Unicron groaned and howled in fury. He dropped the relic, and from Megatron's body, a repulsive purple spirit was drawn painfully from his chassis. It rose up, swirling in a tempest of hate as the relic sucked his energies into the container, locking him inside. Megatron collapsed flat on his face, knocked out briefly by the exorcism.

Standing up, Nightfall walked over to the container. Unicron's energy writhed on the inside, and he raged inside without a way to get out.

Nightfall grinned with delight.

"That was rather brilliant! If I do say so myself."


	73. Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

**Nightfall is literally my saving grace of this story. If it weren't for me writing in his POV and being a sassy silly little shit Prime that doesn't know what he's doing, I don't know if this story would get finished. XD So yes, while I'm having oodles of troubles trying to finish this, it WILL get finished. Nightstalker needs to finish her growth (which is fabulous. She barely resembles the femme she was in the beginning of this.) So bear with me, I'm going to try not to ever let there be more than a month's time between updates (though I think it's been a little over for a month for this update, dang it.) I'm in college again! Whoo-hoo. Hopefully it doesn't cut into my writing too much.**

**But, without further ado, enjoy this next chapter! :) Thanks for being patient watchers!**

* * *

><p>Megatron disbanded the Decepticons. He fled across Cybertron's surface, renouncing his ways after being possessed by Unicron.<p>

Starscream fled in the opposite direction.

And Dreadwing knew where he was headed.

He followed him across Cybertron to Darkmount's peak. It was just like Starscream. He'd go to the Decepticon throne even though there was nothing left of the Decepticon cause. Likely, he was deluding himself because there was nothing left for him. Dreadwing's spark soiled black.

Nothing but his final penance.

When the slim mech transformed and approached the throne, Dreadwing tilted the nose of his alt mode down to follow. Transforming and landing behind him, Starscream squawked and jumped around to face him.

Dreadwing stared aloofly at him, not speaking a word. Starscream blanched, and his wings tipped down.

"D-Dreadwing!" he stuttered, striving to keep the conversation cheerful. "H-How nice it is to see you. You ah . . . You're not thinking of joining up with the Decepticons again, are you?"

He didn't respond. Jaw ticking tightly with muffled rage, his blue optics blazed at he began to walk towards the small seeker.

"O-O-Of course not," Starscream squeaked, backing away from him. "You're an Autobot now. That's right. Isn't it great that your son's still alive? Y-You're not still nursing that about Skyquake are you? I mean, you don't really think that—"

His servo snapped around Starscream's neck. The seeker gasped in terror, hands pulling at the one that hoisted him up high in murderous sight. Dreadwing's grip on his neck tightened.

He was calm.

He was calmer than he had been in vorns.

And apparently, his calm demeanor was more frightening and more dangerous to Starscream than his wild fits of rage. All of the seeker's vents were open, and he all but hyperventilated as he vainly pulled at the servo around his throat.

"You know what you have done to me," Dreadwing whispered, optics boring into his. His servos shook with fury, and his spark felt sick with resentment. "I am here to avenge my family, Starscream, for the things you have done to us."

Starscream kicked, vocalizer filling with static as he tried to defend himself. Dreadwing shook him like he was a rag doll. "You stood and watched as my brother died in battle. You desecrated his remains by raising him from the dead." Dreadwing's servo tightened until he nearly snapped the mech's neck. "You _adulterated_ my spark mate. You tried to kill my only son, and you tried to kill my daughter, your own energon."

Starscream wheezed in terror, optics as round as dinner plates. Dreadwing strode forward to the awaiting throne, and he slammed Starscream against it, flaring his wings wide to intimidate him. Pleasure flooded his spark when the mech quailed in fear, a strangled sort of squeaking emitting from his vocalizer. "And now, you finally have the throne you so coveted," Dreadwing whispered with an unpleasant smile. He reached to his back, drawing his sword. Starscream's optics brightened to sunspots. "And I shall murder you atop it."

"No! No, I'm sorry, I didn't really mean to—!"

Dreadwing interrupted his pointless begging by lifting his blade and severing half of his left wing, grounding him. Starscream screeched in agony, jerking beneath him as the part fell away and energon spurted from the wound. Dreadwing lifted the squirming seeker and slammed him to the ground at the foot of the throne. He heard wings and the heavy landing of company, but he didn't look at them yet. Brandishing his blade, Dreadwing drove it through Starscream's remaining wing, pinning the seeker to the ground.

Starscream howled. Stepping on his opposite arm's wrist so he couldn't pull the sword out, Dreadwing looked to their company. The Predacons had landed with them. Predaking's luminous yellow optics surveyed the scene with a look of interest and genuine pleasure. He transformed and leaned against the wall, rumbling, "Please. Continue."

Starscream's optics widened to planetary proportions. "Wait, no! You can't let him do this to me! You can't—"

Dreadwing growled with an almost feral tone. "Cease your endless prattling!"

Before Starscream could shut his mouth as told, Dreadwing's claws jammed into the seeker's mouth. His claws sank at the base of the mech's glossia, and he ripped it from the Starscream's mouth, silencing his words forever.

He screamed, bucking wildly in pain as Dreadwing flicked the appendage away. Dreadwing smirked, letting the darkness seep into his spark, a mindless rage he had kept under lock and key for so long. He could practically feel the sparks of his mate and brother in the All Spark he was so close to the edge. He let it overtake him, finding solace and absolution within the madness.

"I take your glossia and arms for Ratchet, so your weapons cannot hurt anyone anymore, and to silence your lies once and for all."

If he tried to say something, it was a lost cause without his glossia. He shrieked as Dreadwing placed all his weight on his heel, snapping the seeker's wrist and disabling the use of his missile. He stamped on the other wrist, crushing it with his brute strength. Starscream screeched, a sound like music to Dreadwing's audios.

"What was that?" Dreadwing snarled. "I can't understand you!" He dug his heel on the edge of Starscream's chopped wing, grinding the jagged edge and sparking wires into the ground. Starscream's screaming reached an unbearable pitch as he tortured his highly sensitive wings. "Scream LOUDER!"

Willingly or not, Starscream could only oblige the enraged Autobot. Dreadwing grabbed his ped next, lip curling in disgust. "For Cliffjumper, Nightstalker's mate, I take your heels, simply because he despised the look of them."

With easy strength, Dreadwing snapped the first heel from the silver seeker. Starscream squalled, trying to curl up and away from Dreadwing, but he couldn't help himself at this point. Dreadwing smacked at his scrawny legs when he tried to kick him, and grabbing the second heel, he wrenched and broke the strut.

Dreadwing felt the thrill of having Starscream at his mercy after so long. The gratification swirling in his spark heightened to a razor edged degree as he watched Starscream bleed beneath his power. His screams were a release to his spark and eased his raging guilt. Just for the hell of it, Dreadwing kicked Starscream sharply in his side, causing the mech to jerk and choke on backed up energon.

"For my son," Dreadwing hissed. "I will take your wings."

That lost look Nightflier had borne when he spoke about the years he was grounded . . . That haunted look when he spoke of the agonizing pain he endured . . . Seeing it for himself when Megatron himself ripped his wings off. Starscream deserved no less.

Grabbing the mech's face, Dreadwing yanked his sword out of his wing and cast it aside. Flipping Starscream on his stomach, the seeker's shrieks rose in panic as he scrabbled on his hands and knees to get away. Face twisting maliciously, Dreadwing stamped a ped on his back and jammed his fingers into his body. Starscream jerked beneath him, and Dreadwing's fingers curled around the base of his wing.

With a violent yank, Dreadwing wrenched the wing from Starscream's back. The decibel of Starscream's screams reached a pitch that cracked the glass of Dreadwing's cockpit. Dreadwing tossed the first wing over the edge, and a lurid smile split his facial features at the reaction he received. Starscream thrashed beneath him, vocalizer beginning to fill with static he was screeching so loud. Seduced by his lust for revenge, Dreadwing grabbed the wing he had already sliced in two. A terrified whimper slipped from Starscream's vocalizer before this wing met the same fate as the last.

Dreadwing pulled slowly this time, drawing out the process as much as he could. He heard the gears in Starscream's body grind as he twisted on the ground in agony until the wing was yanked from his body. This time, the dismemberment was too much. Starscream's vocalizer fizzled out as he briefly lost consciousness—much to Dreadwing's disgust. Impatiently, he kicked at the mech's limp body, frustrated that he would pass out during this.

"Wake up!" Dreadwing snapped, optics blazing with obsessed hatred. He kicked the mech again, and Starscream began to stir with a sort of slurred groan. Angrily, Dreadwing hooked his fingers into claws and pierced the seeker's bleeding back right in the oozing wounds.

This time, Starscream's shriek DID shatter the glass of Dreadwing's cockpit. Dreadwing laughed, a laugh not his, at how funny it was. Hoisting up the smaller seeker, Dreadwing hurled Starscream onto his throne. The mech slump limply as Dreadwing prowled over to him, whimpering and gasping in horror.

"For my spark mate," Dreadwing hissed, wings flaring in white rage. "I take your spark. For myself, I will tear your spark from your body!"

Dreadwing grabbed his chassis plating, ripping it clear from its hinges. Starscream's spark glowed vividly in the darkness of the night when it was exposed, beating rapidly in absolute terror. Dreadwing's servo dove in and clenched around the sensitive, fragile organ. Pleasure filled his spark as he gently scratched at the edges when the clouds in the sky suddenly parted, washing the balcony in silver moonlight.

His ventilations were ragged as he froze, feeling a presence he hadn't felt in ages. Dreadwing trembled, servo unable to tighten any more. Blinking in frustrated confusion, he looked out to the moon that hung luminously in the sky. His sin exposed, Dreadwing froze like a deer in headlights, and his wings tipped sharply down.

"Ampere . . ."

His vocalizer rasped tightly. Why? Why now? He was so close he could FEEL Starscream's spark throbbing in his grip, and it would take so little to snuff his life . . . Dreadwing's throat tightened, and his jaw ticked as he warred within himself. Starscream sobbed in terror of him, and Dreadwing closed his optics. He shook.

Not now . . . She would come now. He was so close to releasing himself from all the rage, all the pain, and the fear that his family would come to further harm. Surely she understood that . . . Surely, she had to know WHY he was doing this.

But the moon stared down at him and his actions. She wouldn't look away, and Dreadwing was frozen beneath her gaze. Desiring the satisfaction he had chased after for so long, Dreadwing slammed Starscream into the throne again, glaring at the seeker that was literally dismembered and bleeding out beneath him. His fingers tightened a fraction as he ground his teeth, throat squeezing as he tried to ignore the light. He couldn't. It illuminated his actions, and it made the energon covering his servos gleam starkly in the night.

He trembled in indecision. He couldn't let go of this, he couldn't let go . . . He was right within his grasp! He had him!

Unwillingly, Dreadwing looked back to the moon that shone in the night. His creased brow slackened, and he shook his head. "Why?" he whispered softly. He knew the answer why. He just . . . didn't know if he had the strength . . . He closed his optics, servos loosening as he practically felt her essence wash over him, imparting upon him a peace he hadn't felt in millennial.

His shoulders slumped in defeat. He tilted his helm towards the moon again, gazing out with a soft vent.

She had seen the best and the worst of him. She understood exactly who he was.

And that was why she loved him, even beyond death.

He released Starscream. The mech slumped in the throne, weak, unable to help himself. An interested growl made him look back up to the Predacons in wait. He passed a servo towards Starscream, the mech's energon dripping from his fingertips.

"He's all yours."

Purged of the negative emotions that had haunted him, Dreadwing leapt from the pedestal and flew, leaving Starscream to his fate.

He resisted the urge to fly towards the moon. It was a fanciful thought, as if he would be closer to Ampere that way, but he knew better. She was with him, in his spark, in his memories. And he had a son that—

Wait.

What?

Feeling a sort of . . . gaping chasm where his son would be, Dreadwing hightailed it towards where Nightfall was. He KNEW his son was alive. He could feel him, just . . . he couldn't pinpoint him. He couldn't reach him.

He felt much better when he saw the group of transformers below and his son came into his line of sight, proving that he was there and well. Transforming and landing near them, he saw Nightstalker's optics brighten at the sight of him, as she exclaimed, "Dreadwing—!" and then seemed to catch herself. Almost helplessly, Dreadwing looked at his soiled servos.

"Dad?"

Dreadwing looked up at Nightfall who stepped towards him. Giving a sort of choking ventilation, Dreadwing strode towards them and picked up his children in each arm, hugging them close. They didn't ask questions, but allowed him to hold them. Vents staggering, Dreadwing buried his face into Nightfall's shoulder, breaths seizing as he tried to sort out his overwhelmed emotions. The moonlight poured over them, wrapping them in her embrace.

Nightstalker's fingers tightened around him. "Did you . . ."

She spoke with familiarity. Breathing in deeply, Dreadwing released the air, wings sagging in relief.

"No."

Her arms tightened, and he felt her give a kiss to his cheek. He moved to bury his face into her shoulder this time, carefully keeping any tears from falling. "You conquered him," Nightfall murmured in acknowledgement.

Finally, Dreadwing pulled back enough so he could look at their faces. A small smile began to pull at the edge of his lips. "I am at peace."

Nightfall grinned, and he flung his arms around him in a tight hug. Nightstalker smiled too, and she leaned forward to bop her helm against his. "It'll all be worth it in the end," she said.

Dreadwing looked at Nightfall again. "What is happening to you?" he finally had to ask.

Guiltily, Nightfall froze for one moment before he brushed it off. "Not much, what's happening to you?" Dreadwing frowned as he put them both down, and Nightfall immediately jerked a thumb to the All Spark container that held Unicron's writhing soul. "Just saving the world over here. Anybody know a good shelf we can put the ol' angry Unicorn on?"

He waved his servos before any of the Autobots could react. "Never mind, we'll worry about that later. First thing's first, we've gotta get this little girl," and he pinched Nightstalker's cheek, "to see her worried papa! I can't believe you guys just dumped Ratchet and Ultra Magnus back there! They've gotta be dying for some company, so let's go! Hotspot, can you guys watch the bottle of insane death god over here?"

"Oh SURE," Hotspot said with no small amount of sarcasm. "Just leave the Chaos Bringer with us, that sounds nice! We can babysit him and make sure he doesn't run off."

Nightfall snapped with a wink at him. "PRECISELY."

Dreadwing watched as these things transpired. He searched fruitlessly to pinpoint where Nightfall was in his chassis, and he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried.

Nightfall was avoiding the question. And Dreadwing was slowly piecing together an answer.

* * *

><p>The seekers made it back to the two Autobots in question far before any land based vehicles. Ratchet was waiting eagerly to know of their success.<p>

Any thought of Unicron was put on the back burner when he saw his little girl.

Nightstalker felt herself seized immediately in a crushing hug that lifted her off the ground. She tilted her helm into him, arms pinned, and she felt her spark break a little bit hearing a very thinly veiled sob of relief.

"I was so worried . . ."

Nightstalker's wings tipped at the tightness of his voice. "I'm okay, Dad," she said softly. She kissed his audio, spark swelling to be with him again. "Ultra Magnus is doing okay?"

A frustrated vent pushed from Ratchet that she was shifting the conversation away from her, and he leaned back to shower kisses on her face. "I was fragging worried about you, you little girl, and all you're worrying about is Magnus! Well, he's perfectly lucid and on the mend while I was over here falling apart!"

Nightstalker squirmed and tried to fight back a giggle at the assault of kisses. "Of COURSE I worry about you too!" She shrieked when he suddenly tickled her side. "But you seem pretty spunky! Ah—! Stop it!"

He picked her up again, nuzzling his helm to hers. "You beautiful, brilliant, FEARLESS girl!" He crushed her to his chassis again, rocking her. "I have never in my life been so, SO proud of you!"

Nightstalker laughed, shaking her head. "What? What did I do?"

"What did you DO?" Ratchet gave a laugh, nuzzling her again. His optics twinkled when he looked in her optics. "Nightstalker, you stood up to Megatron all on your own!" Nightstalker's optics popped. "You told him like it was, and by Primus, if that wasn't the most exhilarating thing I've ever witnessed! I am so PROUD of you Nightstalker I could give up my wrench throwing days for good!"

Nightstalker squeaked and giggled when he put another kiss on her. "I was taught well!" she squealed, laughing as he attacked her sides again. "How did you know that?"

Ratchet's optics twinkled. "We were looking for you, so naturally we had to check the security cameras. You were fantastic, Nights!"

Her wings dropped down. "You—saw that?" She bit her lip. "H-How many saw that?"

Finally, Ratchet slowed. "Only myself, Dreadwing, Cliffjumper, and Nightfall."

Somehow, Nightstalker blanched more. "Cliff?"

That kiss burned in her mind. So passionate . . . and she had fallen right back into it. She swallowed guiltily, but Ratchet shook his head at the panic slowly rising in her optics. "It's fine, Nightstalker. Nothing that happened down in that brig counts except that you had the strength and the courage to stand up for yourself when no one else could. For that, we are proud of you, Cliffjumper too. There's nothing to fear."

Nightstalker dipped her helm and nodded, taking to heart what he said. As she finally slipped from his arms, she smiled at where Nightfall was elbowing Ultra Magnus—who was frowning, as per usual.

"Ultra Magnus!" She smiled as she came over to him, gathering the commander's attention. "What happened? Are you all right?"

He nodded. "I'm doing much better now, especially knowing Unicron is . . ." He slanted his optics at Nightfall who grinned unabashedly. "Is like a lightning bug in a glass jar. Very safe."

Nightstalker snickered at his sarcasm. He shifted uncomfortably and looked back to Nightstalker. "As for your former question, I was attacked by two Predacons."

Nightstalker felt herself sigh. "It must have been Skylynx and Darksteel. They're just some turbo-revving dorks. I promise." When Ultra Magnus lifted a brow at her, she blushed sheepishly and rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, it's a long story, so I'd rather just tell it once with everyone here."

Nightfall nodded. "I agree. I have some news too, so we need to have a family meeting with everyone anyways."

"News?" Ratchet arced a brow as Dreadwing just stewed silently to the side, scrutinizing his son. "What kind of news?"

Nightfall opened his mouth, shut his mouth, and then winced. "I, uh, I'm not really sure, so I'll get into that when I get into it."

Catching his father's optics boring into him, Nightfall cleared his throat nervously. "Well, first thing's first, let's wheel the invalid down to the others since the _NEMESIS_ is down for the count." Nightfall grinned at the annoyed Ultra Magnus. "Don't you worry, Captain! I've got everything under control!"

* * *

><p>Well, everything but his own spark, that is.<p>

Nightstalker's story was an interesting one as she detailed how she basically became part of the Predacon pack. Nightfall's news was . . . far more difficult to explain. He was one with the All Spark, that much he could gather, but he wasn't dead. So that was good. He just . . . wasn't sure exactly HOW to extract his own spark from the rest so he didn't send his soul into the afterlife along with all the others when he expelled the All Spark energies back into Cybertron's core.

Arcee was pissed. Nightstalker was panicking. Ratchet couldn't speak. First Aid was distraught. Dreadwing was furious. Sure, yeah, he'd admit that his actions were reckless, but what ELSE was he going to do when Unicron was about to consume the only thing that was going to let Cybertron bear new life? (Not to mention, he may or may not have been a little scared of the Chaos Bringer, Prime or not.) Nightfall knew he couldn't go back and change things, so instead he was trying his best to make do with the consequences he was stuck in.

"Okay, come on. If we think logically, if I put the All Spark energies in me, they can leave me just fine without taking my spark along with it."

Dreadwing just . . . stared. His dark blue optics bored into Nightfall as they stood on the edge of the rim of the Well of All Sparks. His gaze settled heavily on his son, ventilations tight at the thought of losing him all over again. He thinly hid it behind a rigid stance, a neutral gaze, and a taunt voice.

"And if it does?"

He searched his spark for his son, finding a void of sparks that was nigh impossible to sift through. His presence was THERE he just couldn't find him. First Aid stood with them, staring in frozen horror because he couldn't find an answer to their problem.

Nightfall scrambled for an intelligent answer. "W-Well, the point of this is to find out how to keep that from happening, not dwell on what we know is gonna happen if it does. Kay? You're really not making this easy for me, Dad, I could use a little help. I mean, Aid, give me something! I'm not a rocket scientist, but I mean, it's not like science can help us at this point, it's all freaky supernatural stuff, so we're kinda hanging out on a limb here and experimenting because this hasn't happened before, and if you could just give me a little bit of what you're thinking that would be wonderful because you've barely spoken two words—Oh Primus, I'm rambling. Slot. Slot, I'm rambling."

His wings fluttered and he drew in a deep ventilation. Gusting all the air out to an exhaustive degree, Nightfall looked back up at Dreadwing. The mech sucked in a sharp breath and he knelt down to his son's height, looking him directly in his optics.

"Nightflier," he rumbled in a hushed tone, "I'm going to tell you right now that I am terrified I'm going to lose you." His servos reached up to his shoulders, and he shook the smaller seeker. "Nightflier, I am TERRIFIED. I've lost so much, but you—you were my saving grace. And . . . If . . ."

Reaching up and gripping Dreadwing's wrists, Nightfall pressed his lips together. "I'm not going anywhere," he murmured sternly.

Dreadwing didn't blink. "Do you really believe that?"

It had felt like bravado before, something said just to bring Dreadwing's chin up again. Setting his jaw and optics hardening, Nightfall nodded.

"I'm not going anywhere."

In the lull in conversation, Nightfall watched the turmoil in Dreadwing's optics begin to settle; he began to grasp a small sliver of hope. A staggered blast of air brought their attention to First Aid who pinched his brow and rubbed his forehead.

"Theoretically . . ." he started, "Fli-Ni could be right. In the past, the power of the Primes was transferred between sparks, and it would not cause one or the other to lose their soul in the process."

"That's because the one giving the power was dying," Dreadwing pointed out, an edge cutting his voice.

First Aid winced briefly, but shook his head. "That's true, but theoretically, if a Prime were to willingly give up his power to another, step down as Prime if you will, he wouldn't lose himself in the transfer. If we treat the transfer of All Spark energies as such, it should be possible that they can be expelled without harm to Fli-Ni."

"So this is all hypothetical," Dreadwing grated out. "We're betting my son's life on chance."

"He's my brother too!" First Aid defended himself, armor bristling a little. "And what else can we do? There's no possible way to know the outcome of this."

Nightfall vented uncertainly and swallowed. "Guys, I promise you, I won't go anywhere. I'll just empty the All Spark energies, and I promise, I'll be right back." He glanced out to the group below that no doubt had their audio input turned up high to eavesdrop. His gaze settled on Nightstalker, and his optics softened. "I'm not allowed to go yet. I've got too many people to live for."

There was a soft pause, and then, that pause began to stretch to awkward as they realized no one knew what to say anymore. Nightfall began to back up, giving an uncertain skip/hop backwards. "Well . . . I guess this is it. Here I go." Stepping to the edge of the Well's mouth, Nightfall leaned over and looked down it's black throat. His wings fluttered nervously at the foreboding sight that awaited him when he dove into the belly of the beast. He took a moment to take a deep ventilation to steel his nerves and promise himself that everything was going to turn out fine in the end.

Swallowing, Nightfall stepped off the edge just as First Aid shouted, "Fli-Ni, wait!" Jerking and flailing a moment on the brink as he vainly tried to catch himself, Nightfall toppled over the edge. Transforming and jetting back to the top, Nightfall landed next to his brother who's optics were bright with a knee-jerk idea.

"Wha—"

"Fli-Ni," First Aid immediately interrupted, "the All Spark energies were contained in a relic of the Primes, right?"

Nightfall blinked. "Right."

His visor glowed. "And the only other relic you had on hand was the Matrix of Leadership, right?"

"Right."

He snapped and pounded a fist into his opposite palm. Nightfall jumped. "Then that's it! You're just emptying the Matrix, and not all of the energies in your chassis! Your spark is actually a part of you. The Matrix is a conduit, and while it is a part of you, it isn't IN you. That's why it has a casing. All of it can be emptied into another life form and still leave you intact."

Nightfall opened and closed his mouth. "But . . . I mean, Dreadwing had a point, the Matrix only channels its energies into another when they're dying—"

"No no no, stop that, I know that. I know." First Aid grabbed his cheeks, shaking his face. "Listen to me. I'm the doctor. I studied this spark stuff. I know what I'm talking about. Okay? Theoretically, if you chose you didn't want to be Prime anymore, you could have given the Matrix over to someone else or even emptied its contents back into Vector Sigma, right?"

"Uhh . . ."

"But you wouldn't necessarily die over that. We only know that the Matrix projects into someone else when the holder of the Matrix dies because it's necessary. If the holder dies, the Matrix needs a suitable successor because if the energies are in the dying mech's chassis, the energies die too. Make sense?"

"Well, yeah . . ."

First Aid's hands squished Nightfall's face up more. "Then this is going to work. Right?"

"Uh—"

"Stop that. I'm the doctor, and I know what I'm talking about. Tell me I'm right."

"W-well, okay, you're right."

"So you're going to be all right."

Nightfall swallowed and nodded. "I'll be all right."

"It makes perfect sense, Nightfall. This is going to work. All right?"

He nodded back at his almost frenetic brother. "Right." First Aid finally released him, and Nightfall looked over at his silent father. He nodded towards him, promising, "I'll be all right. I'll be back in a jiffy."

While it almost felt like grasping at straws, for some reason, it did wonders for calming Nightfall's spark. He stepped up to the ledge again, wings flaring. Maybe it was because First Aid sounded so SURE of himself. And it did make good sense. The more Nightfall thought about it, the more certain he was, so he leapt into the Well and transformed, soaring inwards. The massive tunnel was dim and long, but with his speed, he found himself at the core of Cybertron in little time. The bright lights glazed in his vision, and while he was still a little nervous, it felt . . . right. He wasn't afraid. Transforming and opening his chassis, exposing the lights inside, he fell inside the core without hesitation.

Ripping pain flared on his back. He felt the energies jettisoning as he released them, his spark lurching and feeling an enticing tug that he fought back. It beckoned him to leave his body that was twisting in pain; it beckoned him to leave his body and follow the All Spark energies. Violently fighting the urge to follow, Nightfall screamed, the pain sharpening while his energies felt drained. His body was shaking, wrenching in the blinding white light as the physical toll reached its peak. The last of the All Spark energies and the power of the Primes left him, leaving his spark feeling hollow and weak. He collapsed on his knees outside the rim of the core, trembling. He pulled the empty Matrix from his chassis, letting it clatter to the floor.

The pain hadn't stopped. In fact, it was . . . familiar. He shuddered, squeezing his optics shut as he dreaded the thought of what he knew was true. As the core erupted with thousands upon thousands of new sparks, he gave a gasping sob, lubricant welling as his arms hugged around his chassis. He wasn't even aware of his father and brother rejoicing that he was alive and their theory had come true. Reaching behind him, his fingers brushed a mangled wing that dangled on one screw.

Burying his face in his servos, he wept. The wing nearly pulled from its socket pulsated in agony, and he twitched with unbridled passion at what he had sacrificed to bring Cybertron back to life.

He was no longer Prime. The energies sustaining him had gone.

The mark of the bomb's trauma was back.

His wing dangled loosely, oozing energon and old burns matting his back.

Nightflier had reverted to his original state.


	74. Closure

**Author's Note:**

**SO SORRY THIS IS GETTING ATROCIOUSLY SLOWLY UPDATED. D: I've been busy, but also obsessing over new fandoms (I REFUSE TO GROW OUT OF TRANSFORMERS THOUGH. TOO MUCH LOVE. TOO MANY STORIES PLANNED.) And on top of that I WILL MURDER MY WRITER'S BLOCK IF I HAVE TO BLEED MY BRAIN DRY. Seriously. I am 110% done with my writer's block. It is just NOT okay.**

**But please, enjoy this chapter, and forgive me in advance when this will take over a month to update again... T.T**

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><p>Nightstalker wasn't sure what she had expected when the All Spark was reunited with Cybertron's core, but the shower of rainbow-colored sparks was the least of ideas. Despite being far from what she envisioned, it was far more grand. Craning her helm back to watch the pluming sparks fly from the Well's opening, Nightstalker felt a small smile begin to tug on the edge of her lips.<p>

A warm hand squeezed hers. Cliffjumper smiled back at her. This time, Nightstalker felt herself grin, and she squeezed his servo back, spark skipping happily. When he winked at her, her energon pumped a little faster, knowing what he was promising her for later.

"Something's wrong," First Aid suddenly said flatly. Nightstalker looked over to see his brow cinching in worry, a shadow crossing his features. "He's . . . something's not right. He's alive, but . . ."

The mech looked over to Dreadwing. The larger seeker pressed his lips together. "He's in distress," he muttered before taking two long strides, transforming, and diving into the Well of All Sparks now rich with life.

Nightstalker felt a worried flutter upset her energon tanks. When she moved closer to speak with First Aid, Cliffjumper moved with her just so they could keep holding hands. "First Aid? What's wrong?"

The mech shook his head, and Nightstalker felt her spark hit her stomach. "I don't know. He's shutting me out, he won't tell me what's wrong . . ."

A red spark flitted close to Nightstalker's face, making her flinch away before focusing her attention on First Aid again. "I am going to THROTTLE my brother if he keeps blocking us out like this! Ugh! Can you—" The red spark darted around her, and Nightstalker scowled, swatting at it. "Just—I—Aid, can you ask him—Oh my FRAG it won't go away!"

First Aid's visor brightened at the same time Ratchet suddenly spoke up, "Nightstalker—Nightstalker, stop!" First Aid grabbed her hands, and Nightstalker leaned away from the bright spark when it nuzzled around her cheeks. Ratchet came bustling up to her, all in a tizzy. "Nightstalker, don't you know what this means?"

She leaned awkwardly away when the red spark nestled lower, brushing up against her chassis. "Uh, obviously, no I don't, Dad. What is going on? How do I get rid of it?"

Ratchet gave a laugh, and he shook his head when she tugged her servos from First Aid's. "No, you don't get rid of it. Nightstalker, that spark has chosen you as its carrier." Nightstalker blinked wide orange optics at him. Ratchet beamed. "Nightstalker, you're going to be a mother!"

Nightstalker blinked again, owlish optics slowly shuttering as she looked back down on the red spark cuddling at her spark chamber. Ratchet's wide smile faltered when silver wings abruptly pointed to the ground.

"Oh no. Oh no no no no, no, Ratchet, I can't be a mom. I'm not—Frag me flying, Ratchet! Ratchet, I can't be a mom!"

"And why not?" Cliffjumper suddenly spoke up. "I think you'd make a great mom!" There was a beat where Cliffjumper seemed to realize what he had said, and then his face blushed nearly as red as his paint job. He coughed, suddenly venting out extra heat from his embarrassment.

"Nightstalker's going to be a mother?" Bumblebee suddenly piped up. He pushed his way to the front of the group, wide blue optics brightening at the sight of the little red spark. "Oh gosh, Nights, he's super cute!" He bit his lip and reached out a finger to gently touch the spark. It flared up brightly and darted out of his reach, hiding between Nightstalker's wings. Bumblebee giggled brightly. "Aww, he's shy!"

Finally, Nightstalker got her jaw working again, "I'm not going to be a mother—"

But, her voice was drowned out by others. "She's having a baby?" Streetwise suddenly asked. He leaned up on his toes, trying to see around Blades. "I didn't know she was sparked!"

"She's not sparked," Groove corrected him, "one of the sparks chose her to be his carrier."

"Babies?" Hot Spot nearly bellowed. "I love babies! This is fragging great!"

"I haven't seen a sparkling in ages," Bulkhead said brightly who grinned at Wheeljack; the mech in question just shrugged, but his optics cut towards the future mother curiously.

"Hey, down in back!" Smokescreen cried, trying to push his way past the bigger mechs. "I wanna see!"

"Well, if anyone wants my opinion," Nightstalker said loudly, "I really, REALLY don't think I'm ready to be a mother!" Her wings fluttered nervously, and she looked up helplessly to Ratchet. "Do I have to?"

The medic seemed to sigh at her, and Nightstalker felt herself shrink. "I suppose you don't HAVE to, Nightstalker," he said seriously. Nightstalker looked down on the red spark that nudged against her spark chamber. "This one is clearly ready for incubation, and if you'd rather not, I'm sure the Decepticon warship might have the supplies needed to incubate it."

Nightstalker vented softly, servos coming up to cup gently around the spark. It swirled and seemed to hum in appreciation at the gesture, stealing away as much of her heat as it could. Ratchet fought back a smile from quirking his lips at her gesture. "However, we can have a serious discussion about being a mother later." He jerked his thumb towards the Well. "Here come Dreadwing and Nightfall."

Nightstalker turned brightly to see her family, and it wasn't until they got a little closer that her excitement dimmed. A strangled vent emitted from First Aid when he saw his brother being carried like a child, and his vocalizer broke.

"Oh, Fli-Ni . . ."

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><p>This was going to be really stupid and childish. He hated interrupting Ratchet and First Aid trading theories about his spark and their debate about his wing, but he was so exhausted at this point that he just had to say something.<p>

"Aid?" His tired voice sighed and his left wing twitched. "I'm in a LOT of pain."

First Aid's ventilations seeped slowly from his vents. He heard him walk over and a comforting hand rest on his neck, a thumb kneading a tight knot of wires. A depression of air hissed from Nightflier's vents as the gesture inevitably soothed him. The throb of his dislocated right wing didn't abate. "I know," he murmured softly. "I can give you something stronger if you'd like, but—"

Nightflier's chassis heaved. "Lucid. I want to stay lucid," he repeated, reminding himself of why he was refusing the heavy duty pain meds. He lifted a servo briefly to rub his fuzzy optics and brow before laying limply on the medical berth again.

First Aid patted his shoulder. "It's going to be all right," he assured him. "With all the Decepticon medical supplies and with Ratchet's medical expertise to help me, we'll get you back in fighting shape light years more quickly than the first time. And hopefully less painfully if we can wing it. Ratchet's going to be a big help."

Nightflier groaned. "Wing it, Aid?"

He heard his brother smack himself. "Sorry."

Nightflier rolled his optics. "Oh, whatever. You'd think I'd be a pro at this stuff by now." Turning his head to the opposite side so he wouldn't get a crick, his optics caught sight of Nightstalker on the other side of the room who was currently enamored with a red spark floating in an old incubation chamber. His lips twitched up with a little grin. Sucking up a big breath, he let it all out on the biggest, most elaborate scream he could.

"OH MY PRIMUS, NIGHTS, I'M DYING!"

Nightstalker gave a tiny shriek, jerking to her peds so quickly she jammed one of her knees into the cupboards, and Nightflier began to giggle helplessly when she even hopped to the side, stumbling to his rescue. For a second, she slowed seeing that he was laughing, and he snickered more when a slow recognition spread across her features. He ducked his helm into his servo, laughing into the berth when her face blotched with color.

"Fli-Ni, I am going to kill you myself! You scared the Pit out of me!"

He grinned roguishly at her, winking her way. "Hey, I had to steal some of the attention away from the baby! Mama can't seem to keep her optics off it, eh?"

If possible, Nightstalker managed to blush even brighter. She pursed her lips. "Well. If you weren't on that berth, I'd knock you right in the face, got that?"

Nightflier chuckled, and he shifted his body sideways some, wincing with the effort, but he managed to prop his chin up on his left servo. "So? What's the big deal with you getting cold feet about being a mom?"

Nightstalker sputtered. "W-What? I—I am NOT mom material, Fli-Ni, look at me! I can't—I can barely keep myself together, what makes you think I could possibly take care of a child?"

"Aw, bull crap!" Nightflier smirked at her affronted face, using the conversation to distract his mind from the pain. "You'd make a great mom. And besides, I am very suspicious that you wouldn't be alone trying to raise it."

Across the room, who had also been staring at the spark, Cliffjumper choked. Systems hiccupping uncertainly, Cliffjumper stammered nervously, "Well, I—I didn't—I mean, I might've—That's not—I have to go!" and the muscle car bolted from the med bay, nearly hitting the bots that had congregated outside to peek in at what was going on.

Nightflier grinned at the look on her face. "Careful, Nights. Keep that up and you might blow a gasket, and that wouldn't be pretty."

Her wings twitched once. Before she could properly think of a retort, Ratchet held up a servo between them. "All right, no one gets to pressure her about being a mother, got it?" He fixed a glare on Nightflier. "That includes you too."

When Nightflier snickered, Ratchet's glare deepened. Nightstalker instead chose to sigh, and rub her helm. "Dad, can I go out on a flight for a little bit? I need to—frag, sorry, Fli-Ni."

"No problem, Sis."

Nightstalker nodded, saying, "But, I really do think flying would do me some good right now. I won't be gone too long."

Two voices spoke at the same time.

"Nights, you don't need to ask—"

"Would you like company—?"

Both Ratchet and Dreadwing looked at each other, and their expressions made Nightstalker give a small giggle. She shook her helm. "No, just me. Clear my helm a little. Calm myself down for sure."

Ratchet craned his head back her way, fixing her with a look. "Don't go too far," he warned her, and she heard the worried undertone of his voice. "You sure you don't want Dreadwing to go with you?"

She smiled patiently, and began to escort herself out before he could make Dreadwing go with her. "I'll be fine, Dad. Ease off the gas. I'll stay close."

"Keep your comm. link on!" he hollered at her as she exited the med bay. Immediately she was assaulted by the group outside the door.

"So are you going to keep it?"

"Did you name him yet?"

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"First baby and first mother of Cybertron's new golden age!"

"Can I see it YET?"

Nightstalker lifted her voice to a yell. "Protectobots, Bulkhead, Wheeljack, Smokescreen, and," her voice tapered off, "and Bumblebee." Then, she put her servos on her hips since she had their attention and lifted a brow. "I haven't made my decision yet, and once Ratchet gives you the clear, you all will be able to see the spark safely in its incubation chamber."

"Nightstalker?" She glanced over to see Arcee at the side, optics dim with worry. "How's Nightfall?"

Her optics gentled. "I bet you can go see him now, Arcee, and if Ratchet gives you grief, just tell him I said you could. He's—" Her face scrunched and she shook her head. "He's feeling plucky as ever."

Some relief eased her, and Arcee hugged her, saying, "Thanks," before she went into the med bay. Which, of course, caused an impatient ruckus.

"What do you mean SHE gets to go in first!"

"What if we wanted to see Nightfall?"

"Ha, as if, Hot Spot. We all know you just wanna see the sparkling."

"Will we get to see them today?"

"Hey, I'm his best chum, I should be the one going in there!"

"BOYS!" Nightstalker's servos found her hips again, and her wings flared as the group of mechs finally died back down to silence again. "You will be allowed in when Ratchet allows you in."

". . . which is never . . ." she heard someone mutter.

"And keep your sarcastic comments to yourself," she added, lifting a brow in Blades' direction. The helicopter grunted and crossed his arms. Nightstalker smiled graciously at them. "Now. Be good boys for the good doctors. I will be enjoying a brief flight, and I don't want any trouble. Got it?"

Hot Spot just grinned and shook his head. "Aye aye, Mama Prime."

She narrowed her optics at his cheeky comment before she moved along. As she moved along the halls of the _NEMESIS_, feeling an awkward sense of deja vu, Nightstalker sighed to herself. She hadn't seen Knockout. Crossing her arms as she walked, she tried to shake off the feeling of crushed hope. Maybe she had been hoping he would apologize. She tried to reason with herself that she was the one stubbornly keeping him out of her spark, but . . . She sighed again, wings dipping. Who was she kidding. A Decepticon apologize? Or . . . former Decepticon . . .

Stepping out onto the upper deck of the _NEMESIS_, Nightstalker looked out over the expanse of Cybertron. A cold chill settled in her spark as she looked out in the direction of Kaon.

_I can do this. I know I can do this. I already did it once, I can do it . . . Well . . . Maybe I don't HAVE to do it . . ._

Her wings fluttered nervously. Maybe she should just go see Predaking and his brothers. They hadn't been properly introduced yet. And she did promise him a flight over the Manganese Mountains. Were they settled there yet? She turned, looking the opposite way towards the mountains on the distant horizon. Did he bring his creator with him? He seemed to have a certain affection for his creator. Shockwave could also help rebuild his race.

A faint breeze touched her wings. Who was she kidding. Here she was, procrastinating what she had already decided. Deliberately, Nightstalker took a deep breath, trying to let her anxieties go. She wasn't doing this for him, and she wasn't doing this for Optimus. It was for her, and her alone.

_I need this. And I can do it._

A paranoid giggle jumped from her. Wouldn't Ratchet be furious at her if he found out? Who was she kidding, EVERYONE would be furious if they found out . . . Kicking herself mentally, Nightstalker finally leapt and transformed. She hummed an Earth tune to herself as she flew across Cybertron's surface, distracting herself a little from what she was doing so she wouldn't back out at the last second.

Kaon slowly came into sight. An involuntary shiver ran down Nightstalker's struts as she entered the city again and she slowed, dipping down closer to the surface. She weaved through the buildings, familiar with her surroundings, derelict as they were. She circled around the building she vaguely remembered living in before the attack, decided she didn't want to revisit the place, and moved on. She went deeper into Kaon, thinking she remembered the correct gladiatorial pit. It was actually easy to find considering the amount of tributes around it and on it given to the warlord. Nightstalker landed outside of it, trembling.

She stood there for so long she began to wonder if she was going to enter. Chiding herself, Nightstalker argued that if she had gotten this far, she might as well go through with it. Unlocking her legs, Nightstalker walked into the building, wings fluttering nervously at the way her ped steps seemed to echo.

When she entered the stands, her peds rooted to the floor again. He was there. Just like she thought. Her energon tanks gave a sickening turn, and her thoughts jumped to past events, but she shook it off. No. That wasn't why she was here. Taking a rasping breath, she couldn't help but notice that his silver paint job that used to gleam in the pit was now tarnished and dulled by the taint Unicron had left on him. She was certain that he knew she was here, but he hadn't moved an inch, hadn't even turned around to look at her.

Shaking so much she could hear her armor rattling, Nightstalker took a breath to calm herself before slowly descending the steps of the dome to the front row. She stopped once there, and she grabbed the railing, bracing herself there. He still hadn't given her any indication that he was going to recognize her presence there. She cleared her vocalizer once; twice. "M-Megatron?"

His helm twitched down, seeming to almost flinch. His servos tightened into fists, and it was almost enough to make her flee. However, all he said was, "I am surprised you sought me out."

Her wings fanned quickly. He was different. She supposed any mech once possessed by evil incarnate would be different. Different enough that Nightflier had said he had disbanded the Decepticons once he was under his own control again. Suddenly lacking something to say, Nightstalker reeled. What was she supposed to say? She knew what she had to say, but she couldn't really just say it, could she? They had unfinished business? She finally cracked her vocalizer on.

"Ack."

THAT was not a word.

Her vocalizer caught again, and she coughed, resetting it. "U-Uh . . ." She sucked in another nervous cycle, willing herself to be calm. He seemed calm enough. It was going to be all right. Except for the fact that she had come alone and no one knew where she was . . .

"Why did you come back here?" she finally managed to squeak.

His servos tightened more, until they shook, and finally, they relaxed. "I don't know," he finally rasped quietly, his voice easily carrying across the dome. He looked up at the ceiling, seeming far more vulnerable and lost than Nightstalker was accustomed. "I think I am searching for my mistakes. Finding that my entire life must have been one."

Nightstalker stared at his back. Despite his greater size intimidating her, She finally gathered enough strength to hurdle the railing and land in the pit with him. He still didn't move. "I . . . I don't think everything was a mistake," she finally ventured. "No one's life is a complete mistake."

There was a beat, and then, she heard him give a short laugh. She was shocked to hear such a genuine tone from him. "You are always full of surprises," he finally murmured, shaking his head. He turned towards her, slowly, finally looking at her fully. His red optics flicked over her. "The silver really does look good," he finally ventured.

Nightstalker nodded, dipping her helm. Was it appropriate to say thank you? "Thanks," she heard herself whispering quietly. "It's my mother's color."

There was a small lull in the conversation. It stretched awkwardly as Nightstalker tried to find her glossia, and finally, Megatron vented. "Nightstalker, you came here for a reason. Speak your piece."

She shrank briefly before reminding her that she had stood up to him already. She had the spinal struts for the job. She could do this. Taking a deep breath and perking her wings up to pluck up her courage, Nightstalker shuffled closer to him . . . and closer . . . until she was within proper conversation distance. "I, um . . . well . . ." Unicron just had to make him taller and larger, didn't he? He had to be at least Predaking's height now . . . "I came to say, um . . . I mean, I guess I thought, you needed to hear . . . Um . . . I . . ."

He huffed. "Spit it out, Nightstalker, we are far from beating around the bush with one another."

He yanked the words right out of her throat. "I forgive you!"

Nightstalker cringed, shrinking as she was fairly sure her voice had echoed in the empty arena. Squeezing her optics shut for whatever he might have in store for her after that, Nightstalker's wings snapped down and braced herself.

Nothing was forthcoming. At all. He didn't attack, he didn't retaliate, he didn't even move. She could actually hear his internal mechanisms working in his body as he seemed to process her words. After a pregnant beat of silence, he finally rasped,

"What . . . What did you say?"

She peeked up at him, and she found him staring at her in a sort of shocked confusion. "I . . ." It actually came out easier the second time. "I forgive you."

His optics shuttered as he stared at her, brows cinching. "For what?" he ventured warily.

Nightstalker shook her head and shrugged lightly. "Well, for . . . everything. For lying to me. For using me. For taking me too early. For raping me. For your hand in the war. For killing so many." She nodded, convincing herself of it with her words, and she finally looked up into his optics, meaning it. "I forgive you. For all of it."

He just . . . stared. It was like he couldn't even comprehend the thought, and Nightstalker felt her spark sink at the sight of his disbelief. She watched his lip curl for a moment, like he was going to lash out at her compassion, but he seemed to think the better of it. His cheeks twitched briefly, as if he was about to laugh derisively at the thought, and then that faded away too. He struggled with the thought, shaking his head, and finally, he mustered up a single word.

"Why?"

Nightstalker took a deep breath. "Because no one's beyond redemption." She had been taught that. Oh, how she had been taught that. "Anyone can be forgiven," she continued, "have their past forgotten in hopes of a better future. Amend their wrongs. It . . ." She smiled softly. "It takes a lot of patience. And, while it might hurt at first, or make you feel confused or ashamed . . . In the end, it heals. You won't hurt anymore. You won't feel ashamed. It'll fill up those broken parts of your soul."

She shook her helm, wings dipping a little in remembrance. "It's . . . taken me a long time to learn the healing powers of forgiveness, but I'm glad I have." She looked up at him again, making sure their optics were locked so he knew that she truly meant it. "And that's why I'm forgiving you. Because you deserve the chance to be happy too and not have someone judging you and saying that everything you are is evil and cannot be forgiven—because that's what we've always done. Even Optimus. So I forgive you, regardless of everything, because I've never seen a mech so desperate for love in my entire life."

That was the whole issue behind the war. Optimus' endless compassion. Because that was where he drew the line—compassion. He cared enough to feel pity for Megatron, sorrow for him, mercy and empathy . . . But that was where he drew the line. The things Megatron had said and done stood between them even though they stood for the same thing—overthrowing the caste system, ushering Cybertron into a new, golden age, and freedom as the right of all Cybertronians and sentient beings—and it was Optimus' unwillingness to love Megatron unconditionally that ultimately begat the downfall of both mechs.

After a beat of silence, Megatron shook his head with the bark of a disbelieving laugh. "You . . . You really believe that. You thought it through, you came here, you told me that, and you fragging believe it." He shook his head again, turning away from her and fists clenching up in his agitation. "I don't understand."

Nightstalker frowned. Sure she had explained it well enough but prepared to try to make better sense of it, she asked warily, "Understand what?"

"Why!" he exploded, whirling back around. For the first time, Nightstalker found she didn't flinch away. He threw out a servo. "I mean—HOW? How can you possibly find it in yourself to forgive ME?"

She gave a small shrug. "Well, I chose to."

He scoffed. "You chose to."

Frowning at his mockery of her gesture, Nightstalker put her servos on her hips. "Yes, I chose to," she said sharper than before. "If you remember, that was the entire point of the war, so people could choose of their own free will."

"I know what the war was about!" Megatron snarled, armor hitching up defensively. "Don't you lecture me! You're mad and deluding yourself. No one can forgive me."

Nightstalker pressed her lips together angrily. "Yes I can!" she snapped. "I just forgave you, you're just choosing not to accept it. I decided that I'd rather reach out to someone instead of festering with my grudge, and according to my brother, that's exactly what's wrong with you, that you can't let someone love you and that's why you hurt everyone you care about! It took four million years of war and Optimus' death for you to keep spurning his care for you; you manipulated my brother, and you raped me. So what can you say for yourself?"

His red optics smoldered down on her with fiery anger. His jaw ticked tightly, and his servos shook against a violent outburst of anger. With the way Nightstalker jutted out her chin, practically daring him to strike her, made it even more difficult to control himself. He vented loudly, expelling pent up heat, and finally, he looked away, backing down. Nightstalker's perked wings finally relaxed, and with a depression of air, slowly let go of her anger.

"Megatron," she said calmly, "I . . . I don't know where you're going to go after this, but . . . I could put in some words for you." His cheek twitched. He turned away from her, but Nightstalker continued. "I know what the rest of them will think, but I don't care. You deserve the chance to start over just as much as anyone else does." When he kept his back to her and refused to answer, Nightstalker swallowed, looking at his clenched servos. Sucking in a deep breath, she reached out, touching him voluntarily. "Megatron—"

His servo twitched under her touch. "Nightstalker." She fell silent at the tone of his voice. The tension in his servo lessened. "I . . . I appreciate what you mean, but I don't think I'm ready to accept it. I have my own problems to sort out yet." His helm rolled down, and after a pause, he turned, crouching to her level. She physically suppressed the urge to back away when he took her servo in his again. "I owe you an apology. I can't truly say it now and mean it, so I'll save it until it's genuine." Nightstalker nodded, respecting his decision. She didn't need an apology now. She just wanted him to know that someone could still love him after it all, no matter how strange a dynamic that love might be.

"It's all right," she said. She fluttered her wings. "In a weird way, I almost need to thank you. If it wasn't for everything, I think I'd still be just as weak as I was before. I'm . . . stronger now. I found my courage. I found the will to fight and to not apologize for who I am. I wouldn't know how to be the person I am now if it wasn't for you."

Heavily, Megatron vented. He stared down at her servo he held, unable to look her in her optics. His grip on her tightened. "Don't thank me," he rasped, shaking his head. "The Autobots taught you those things. I was the one that made you act on them."

"I wouldn't have been able to grow without you."

Megatron winced and scowled. "I'm not sure you remember everything I've done to you."

Nightstalker frowned. "And can't you accept that sometimes good things can come from pain? If you weren't a miner and a gladiator, would you have ever found individualism within yourself?"

His servo tightened on hers until he nearly crushed it in his grip. "Please do NOT justify my actions, Nightstalker. I deserve far more reparations than Unicron was able to extract upon me."

She put her other servo on top of his and dipped her helm down, trying to get within his line of sight. "And to not punish you is mercy."

Megatron abruptly stood, pulling his servo from hers. "Not now," he said, straining. "Maybe not ever. Not until I can come to terms with myself."

Nightstalker hesitated. "Well . . . No matter where you decide to go . . . I'll always were here on Cybertron. So, well, feel free to come back if you need someone to talk to."

After a strained moment, the tension drained from him. "I will remember that," he said softly.

A soft smile made it to Nightstalker's face. She didn't say anything more, not wanting to push it, so instead she left, leaving him alone. However, she felt a peace with the situation now. Transforming and taking to the skies, Nightstalker sighed.

_This is what you would have wanted, right Optimus? It's what I wanted too. I hope you can rest in peace knowing the change that is beginning for Megatron. And thank you for teaching me to be greater than I ever was before._


	75. Politician

**Author's Note:**

**I apologize that this chapter is so short, but I felt I had to get SOMETHING up after having not updated for so long. I've got that kind of writer's block where you're burnt out at the end of a story and while you know what you want to write, you just can't write it. It's also that kind of block where you have a million new ideas floating through your head and you can't pick which one to write, and you just can't write at ALL.**

**At least now I can say I finally WANT to write again. (I've been dabbling with a Young Justice fanfic for fun to help myself get back into the writing thing again, which is actually helping quite a bit. I can use the episodes as a vague outline, so I have something solid written for me, but I can write around it and add at will. It's a good kind of exercise.)**

**And, I WILL finish this story if it's the last thing I do! I am on the very last stretch, the very end of the story. There's literally only a few loose things to tie up, and some things you guys have been waiting for forever now. So trust me, the updates might be extremely slow, but I will get this done!**

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><p>"NO. No, no, we are NOT doing that, Nightfall. You've got to be out of your fragging mind!"<p>

Nightflier gave a one-sided shrug on the bridge of the _NEMESIS._ "I'm afraid if this comes down to a vote between us, you've already lost, Ratchet." He nodded his head to Ultra Magnus to the side whose face was pinched unpleasantly. The young flier cracked a Cheshire grin at the appalled jaw-drop Ratchet spared Ultra Magnus.

"I can't believe you agreed to this," he accused the commander.

Ultra Magnus grunted in annoyance and muttered, "He twisted my arm."

"Did not," Nightflier cut in quickly, pointing his finger. "I made the perfect argument. Since the war is over—"

"It's been three days—" Ratchet tried to interject.

"And since the war is over, we're welcoming refugees from the war. And as a Prime who comes from a lower caste, I remember how slagged things were for us, so I'm going to acknowledge the surrendering Decepticons with grace and maturity expected from a Prime."

His lips pursed when Ratchet gave an exasperated roll of his optics. "That is all good and well, Nightfall, but SOUNDWAVE? He was Megatron's third in command! We are not obligated in any fashion to launch a rescue mission for HIM!"

Smirking, Nightflier sat on one hip, pointed his finger at Ratchet, and winked. "See, that's just you being old and cranky and prejudiced," he said, causing Ratchet to flush in anger. "I'm inclined to think that my Prime compassion should extend to him and see if he would like a place in the coming peace." Ratchet muttered something under his breath about Nightflier not "really" being a Prime anymore, prompting Nightflier to add, "And we already agreed that we should still have an acting Prime. But instead of the corrupt Council we had, I want to make sure all the factions are represented, Autobot, Neutral, AND Decepticon."

When Ratchet was just as stumped about what to say to that as Ultra Magnus had been, Nightflier grinned in delight, his good wing fluttering brightly. "Right! So, can you duplicate that ground bridge frequency for me, Ratch? I don't want him running out of energon reserves in the Shadow Zone or this would have been a kinda stupid conversation."

He shook his head, grinning as Ratchet stomped his way across the platform that had been cleared of the debris crashing had caused. Most of the _NEMESIS_ had been cleaned up since it was basically their only place to rest and their only reserves and medical area. As for Unicron all bottled up in his jar . . . Nightflier hid him away. The former Prime thought back on his hiding place for Unicron, decided for the umpteenth time that it was a pretty nifty and clever spot, and hoped no one could ever think like him.

Clicking his heels together, Nightflier fidgeted a little, asking, "So . . . Where's Nightstalker?"

Ratchet didn't glance up from the computer and continued to tap away. "The medical ward."

Nightflier pursed his lips and sauntered a little closer, doing his best to act like he wasn't being nosy while being absolutely perfectly nosy. "Ohhh, okay. So, well, the last time I saw her, she didn't seem sick. She looking at the sparkling again?"  
>"Yes."<p>

He wrinkled his olfactory system at Ratchet's cryptic answer. So now he was going to be stubborn. He sidled up next to the doctor. "Did the, ah, conversation with her go well?"

"As smoothly as can be expected."

His vents flared in frustration that Ratchet was somehow answering his questions without actually answering them. "So, what's she thinking about being a mom?" There. He had to answer that.

"I suppose you could ask her yourself and see if she'd like to reveal that information."

Nightflier groaned and physically sagged. "Ratchet. You are wonderfully frustrating."

"I could say the same to you," Ratchet shot back. He turned and crossed his arms at the young Prime. He nodded his head towards the computer. "Coordinates are set. Are you ready?"

"Sure," Nightflier said with a wave of his servo. "Ultra Magnus, if for some off chance that he attacks me, can you get him off of me? I won't be of much use, crippled like this. All right, Ratch, open her up!"

He heard Ratchet grumbling to himself about how this was a bad idea, and Nightflier felt Ultra Magnus' presence behind him like a solid rock. The bridge blasted open in a swirl of color, and Nightflier didn't think twice about hopping through.

Nightflier blinked when a blank visor turned up to him. Soundwave was kneeling on the ground, Laserbeak clutched in his lap. Nightflier stared for a klik at the energon pump running between them, and he whirled around so fast that he nearly collided with Ultra Magnus. "We need to get him on the bridge pronto," he blurted, and he darted past his SIC and onto the bridge again, contacting Bumblebee. "Bee? I need an energon cube on the bridge stat, got it? Break all speeding laws, Bee."

There was a beat in which Ultra Magnus didn't come back through the bridge with Soundwave, and Nightflier fidgeted. He almost decided to run back through and see what was taking so long when Magnus walked back through the bridge carrying Soundwave who was too weak to move on his own. He quickly sat him back down, as if touching him was repulsive, and Nightflier skipped forward, kneeling with the Decepticons critically close to shutdown.

Nightflier stared into his visor, trying to see if there were optics behind it. "The war's over," he stated to the Decepticon. He didn't say anything back despite having broken his vow of silence earlier. He just continued to siphon his energon into his cassette. "Megatron's dead. We're starting an era of peace, and that means I'm going to welcome all Decepticons back equally if we put aside our differences." He stared for a moment again, trying and failing to figure out what the enigmatic Decepticon was thinking. Soundwave's head just bobbed slightly, lowering with exhaustion as he gave his energon away to keep his cassette alive. Laserbeak's wings flapped slightly.

Nightflier swore lightly under his breath, saying, "You're going to kill yourself like that . . ." and immediately began to unravel his own energon cord. Behind him, he heard Ratchet start to say, "Nightfall, don't— . . ." but gave it up as quickly as he started. Ignoring modesty and remembering that he'd only done this with his sister before, in the slums of Kaon, Nightflier hooked his energon line into the Decepticon next to him. Soundwave twitched at the intrusion and intimacy of being so close, but didn't struggle. Quietly, Nightflier began to siphon some of his own energon into Soundwave to keep him alive.

No one said anything. The silence was tense because he could feel Magnus and Ratchet with their disapproving glares, but he really couldn't care. This was right, and he knew it. He couldn't afford to be prejudiced against Decepticons with the war over. Wary, maybe, but not judgmental.

There was a squeal as Bumblebee came hurtling into the room at top speed, a half empty energon cube sloshing in his hand. "I came as quick as I could, Nightfa—HOLY scrap, is that Soundwave! Nightfall! What's going on?"

Nightflier just waved his servos at Bumblebee's freaking out. "Bee, calm it down and give me that energon cube."

Bumblebee hesitated and bolted forward again, nearly sloshing some more energon out of the cube. "I'm sorry, I ran so fast some of the energon sloshed out, but I figured it would be better to just get it here as fast as possible since it sounded like an emergency. We're saving Soundwave? What's going on?"

Nightflier extended his hand, curling his fingers for the cube Bumblebee still hadn't handed him. "Bee. Cube."

"O-Oh! Right. Sorry." Bumblebee finally gave Nightflier the cube, fidgeting on his peds in confusion as he looked at the sight of the bots hooked together on the floor.

Nightflier held the cube towards the silent Cons. "Hey. Take it." Soundwave lifted his head wearily, staring at the peace offering. When he didn't take it, Nightflier gestured. "Come on, I can't give you all of my energon. Take it. We're at peace now."

Soundwave stared. Nightflier waited as the Decepticon clearly contemplated something. His helm tipped downwards again to Laserbeak, and Nightflier fluttered his good wing, trying not to wince when he felt the mechanism in his right wing trying to move a dislocated wing. The silence stretched until finally, a slender hand reached out and accepted the energon cube.

Nightflier released a small breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when Soundwave took his offer. He unhooked from the Decepticon, and wished he hadn't a second later when he watched Soundwave let Laserbeak refuel first, clearly caring little for his own reserves. Nightflier craned his head to where Bumblebee was watching with wide optics. The scout jerked to attention. "Bee, fetch another cube for us, and try to keep it full this time."

He saluted. "Yes, sir." He trotted off, throwing glances behind him until he left the room.

Sitting down fully, Nightflier crossed his legs as Soundwave let Laserbeak refuel. He cleared his throat uncertainly, glancing back at Ultra Magnus and Ratchet. Simultaneously, they both raised their brows at him.

Okay, well don't make him feel intimidated, right?

Huffing a vent and fluttering his wing, Nightflier cleared his throat again. "Well, um . . . I guess you're wondering why we got you out of the Shadowzone. And um . . . Well, the war's over, so I figured it'd be cruel if we left you to rot until shutdown. And—And we're going to have to rebuild Cybertron, so . . ." He cut off short, optics popping as he suddenly waved his servos. "I mean, I'm not meaning to make you a construction worker! No, I mean . . . This is coming out all wrong."

He took a deep breath, trying to settle his frazzled nerves. "What I'm trying to say is, the war's over, and we're going to need a system. And I don't want it to be corrupt like the Council was, so if we have a working Prime, me, and a Council, I want the Council to be made up of Autobots, Neutrals, AND Decepticons." He paused when he could literally FEEL Soundwave's gaze on him. He cleared his throat nervously. "So um, yeah. I'm asking you to be a politician."

When Soundwave only continued to stare behind that faceless mask of his, Fli-Ni began to backpedal harder. "I mean, only if you wanted to, but I really need someone to represent the Decepticons. And I mean, if you hung out with Megatron, I'm sure you're good with politics and things, and I know Thing 1 and Thing 2 back there don't agree with me because they think you're too dangerous, but if we don't show some trust somewhere, we won't ever be able to bridge the gap between Autobots and Decepticons. We—We're all Cybertronians, and we're all going to have to get along to live together because I'd rather bring everyone home instead of splitting us up. And I want things to be fair, not like the old system where people were oppressed, you know that. You lived like that, I lived like that, and I just—I don't want to put people through that. So I mean—I need to make sure some Decepticons are there to represent the surrendering 'Cons because I want them to get fair treatment, and . . . yeah."

Awkwardly falling silent, Nightflier looked away from Soundwave. The 'Con laid aside the empty energon cube, and Laserbeak transformed, latching to Soundwave's chassis. There was a pregnant moment of silence before it was once again broken by the doors whizzing open and Bumblebee chirping, "Uh, another energon cube . . ."

Nightflier nodded his helm towards Soundwave. "It's his." Bumblebee gave a worried look, and he hedged closer to Soundwave. His wings twitched, and he jutted his chin up, bucking up his courage and holding the cube out to him as confidently as possible. Deliberately, Soundwave's hand reached out and took the cube from Bumblebee. The scout immediately took a step away when he could, nodded, and asked, "Anything else?"

Nightflier shook his head. "Nope. That's it." He didn't dismiss Bumblebee, and the scout didn't leave, choosing to stay and figure out what was going on. Soundwave looked down on the cube he held, and then, he nodded.

His wide blue optics widened. "Does that mean you accept?"

Soundwave nodded again. Nightflier nearly let out a hoot before Soundwave reached up, slender fingers clasping his mask. Nightflier's vents seized. Without preamble, Soundwave took off his visor, revealing his face.

Nightflier quickly looked away before peeking back at what was left of his face. The wounds clearly hadn't received the proper medical attention they should have, but they were old, and there was no changing the damages now. A deep gash ran in a horizontal slant across his face, over both optics that were shattered. He began to drink from his energon cube, lucky that his mouth and cheeks were in proper working order. Nightflier stared at his broken, darkened optics, and he looked away again, staring down at his knees.

He was blind.

Shifting uncomfortably at the sudden display of trust, Nightflier cleared his throat, swallowing. Soundwave continued to refuel, tipping back the entire cube steadily until it was empty. Then, he replaced the visor over his face, and the tense spell cast over them was broken by the familiarity of having his face covered.

Soundwave looked at him. Nightflier blinked, trying not to stare too hard, and he cleared his throat again. He patted Soundwave's knee and nodded understandingly. Finally, he stood up, saying, "Well . . . Welcome aboard the _NEMESIS _and welcome to a new age on Cybertron. You'll have to forgive anyone for the initial distrust, and I'm sure people will keep a really close eye on you, but um . . . Here's to peace."

He stuck out his hand. The silent Decepticon studied him for a minute, and then, he stood. He reached out and took Nightflier's servo, giving him a firm and solid shake.


End file.
